


Till Human Voices Wake Us: J/D

by ivorygates



Series: Till Human Voices Wake Us [2]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Apocafic, Episode: s01e12 Fire and Water, Episode: s01e22 Within the Serpent's Grasp, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-13
Updated: 2013-04-13
Packaged: 2017-12-08 07:47:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/758875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivorygates/pseuds/ivorygates
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He tries to pay attention in Sam's briefing on PX8-925; he really does, but his mind is elsewhere.  On Jack.  He kissed Jack.  Jack kissed him back.  Or maybe it was the other way around.</p><p>It was just after he came back from Oannes.  Why can't they all have names?  Oannes has a computer designation, too.  He just can't remember it after spending three days awake in Nem's stronghold, trying to solve the riddle of 'what fate Omoroca.'  He wishes, for Nem's sake, there'd been another answer.</p><p>He wishes a lot of things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Till Human Voices Wake Us: J/D

**Author's Note:**

> This is one of three versions of is the same story (the exact same story! Really!). This is the slash one. What I wanted to see was how - and how much - the gender and sexual orientation of the viewpoint character would change the events of the story, if that's the only thing that's different. If the plot is not about sex, but Daniel's bisexual, will the story play out differently than if he's straight? If it's action/adventure, does it matter if 'Daniel's' a man or a woman? What's going to change?

He tries to pay attention in Sam's briefing on PX8-925; he really does, but his mind is elsewhere. On Jack. He kissed Jack. Jack kissed him back. Or maybe it was the other way around.

It was just after he came back from Oannes. Why can't they all have names? Oannes has a computer designation, too. He just can't remember it after spending three days awake in Nem's stronghold, trying to solve the riddle of 'what fate Omoroca.' He wishes, for Nem's sake, there'd been another answer.

He wishes a lot of things.

That Life were simpler, sometimes. That men were not as beautiful to him as women. Wouldn't everything be easier if he could just pick one or the other?

If he hadn't fallen in love with Sha're.

If he hadn't fallen in love with Jack.

He'd thought -- on Abydos, coming back, and until just a few days ago -- it would be better if it were Sha're-only-and-never-not-ever-Jack. Even though Sha're is a host now, and thinking of what she's going through is driving him slowly mad. Because Jack is in the _Air Force,_ for God's sake, and Daniel has heard urban (campus) legends about U.S. Military homophobia for most of his life. He's been sure a beating is the least of what would happen to him if Jack knew about him. That he'd be thrown off of SG-1, certainly. Then how could he search for Sha're and Skaara?  
  
But even knowing -- or thinking he knew -- that, he couldn't help but love.

Because Jack is...

Everything a friend, a brother, a hero should be. A comrade. Daniel still can't imagine being a soldier, doesn't want to be one, but the tales and legends of Antiquity have forced themselves into his unguarded mind over and over during the past months. The Sacred Band. Alexander and Hephaestion. Achilles and Patroclus.

_'Kiss me, Hardy,' Admiral Lord Nelson had said as he lay dying..._

He'd come back from Oannes so exhausted he could barely walk, and so desperate to see the sun of Earth Janet hadn't had the heart to keep him in the Infirmary once he'd been cleared. Jack had, naturally, offered to drive him home. Considering what a mess Jack and the rest of SG-1 had made of his apartment, Daniel suspects Jack had been hoping to head off a meltdown, but actually Daniel had been too tired to care by the time he got there. He'd barely been able to stay on his feet.

Which is why, of course -- the other reason -- Jack had walked him to his door. Walked him inside.

Daniel had looked around. Surveyed the books in piles on the floor, the jumble of packing boxes. It had barely registered.

"Yeah, right, okay," he remembers saying. "Goodnight, Jack."

And then he'd turned back to Jack, already nearly asleep on his feet, dazed with exhaustion and rebirth, eyes half-closed, turning his face up for a goodnight kiss as if he were a tired child. Uncensored. Automatic. Suicidal.

And Jack had kissed him on the mouth, drawing him close.

Not a chaste child-goodnight kiss. But not a kiss of lust, either. It had held everything of love and fear salved and desperate relief Daniel had ever hoped to receive.

And it was over before Daniel quite understood what was happening and the door was shut, leaving him alone. And he'd _still_ been too exhausted to do anything but go to bed, but he's had plenty of time -- days -- to think about it since then.

Jack probably hadn't meant to kiss him. Hug him, yes. Jack has hugged him before. Not kiss him. Not on the mouth. Not that way.

But he did.

And now Daniel is pretty sure Jack is probably not going to beat him up any time soon.

He needs to talk to Jack. About this. To tell him...

That he's been terrified of what would happen if anyone found out about him?

That he won't tell anyone about this?

That it's possible to love two people at once, and he does?

That he's afraid, more each day, Sha're is never coming back at all? That they'll never find her?

That nothing about Jack-and-Daniel can matter in a universe where even one _Goa'uld_ is alive?

Maybe all those things.

He needs to say something, anyway. Because Jack has managed to pretty much avoid being alone with him after that, and, knowing Jack, it's going to take a bit of ingenuity on Daniel's part to arrange time and privacy outside the SGC to talk to him. PX8-925 looks like a good opportunity. The MALP (Mobile Analytical Lab Platform) went through last week to make sure it was safe to send a Team through and found none of the indicators that would suggest the world is currently inhabited. No people, not even any large animals. Today's mission will be a standard reconnaissance to see if anybody might have been there once and left anything interesting. Daniel knows Jack will be hoping for weapons. Usually Daniel is hoping for one of two things: information that will lead them to Sha're, or something _interesting_. Today he's just hoping for a chance to be able to talk privately to Jack.

At the last moment, it looks as if the mission is going to be scrubbed; Sam says the dialing computers are throwing out anomalies and she's going to have to spend the morning running a full diagnostic. Daniel's sure Jack will take the opportunity to postpone the mission, even though Sam says her work won't interfere with routine Gate operations, but instead Jack suggests making it a threesome and having Sam catch up to them later if everything checks out.

Maybe Jack wants to talk as much as he does.

So they go.

#

No matter what happens afterward, going through the Gate is always a rush, and arriving on each new planet, taking that first breath of alien air with reassembled lungs, makes Daniel feel as if he's starting his life over again. He doesn't feel any heavier than he did on Earth, which is nice; he hates the clumsiness a change in gravity brings. He follows Teal'c down the steps, glancing around curiously. They're in a second-growth forest; the new trees have come up pretty near the Gate. The air smells a little like woodsmoke -- probably a forest fire from a lightning strike -- and a lot like flowers, but though his nose prickles, it's not too bad, and he can load up on more antihistamines later if it gets worse. The light is bright, and he checks the position of the sun; it's already near noon here. It's early morning on Earth, and they'll spend half a day here and go back and it will still be early afternoon in Colorado Springs. His days aren't twenty-four hours long any more. They haven't been since he went to Abydos.

He passes Teal'c and the DHD and looks back. Jack, as usual, is still standing on the steps surveying his surroundings before moving out, still framed by the radiance of the incoming wormhole. He turns back, raising a hand to beckon: _come on down, the water's fine._

And so he and Teal'c are both looking back at Jack in the moment when the event horizon flashes from blue to white.

Two-hundred fifty pounds of Jaffa warrior suddenly lands on top of Daniel, flattening him and driving all the air from his lungs. A moment later Teal'c is up and running, shouting Jack's name: _O'Neill_. It's precious seconds after that before Daniel realizes he needs to be up, moving, something's gone wrong. He staggers to his feet, coughing and gagging as he tries to fill his lungs, running back toward the Gate, back up the steps he walked down less than five minutes before. Teal'c is kneeling on the stones and he doesn't see Jack anywhere.

Then he does.

"Oh, god, no."

Jack is here, and there's no need to hurry. The body lying prone before the Gate isn't just burned, it's been carbonized. Daniel thinks of Pompeii, of Nagasaki, of twisted desiccated mummies in catacombs. He slides to his knees on the opposite side of the body from Teal'c, and as he does, he sees Jack's MP5. It's twisted because all the rounds inside it have exploded. He reaches out for it reflexively before the heat radiating from it stops him.

Teal'c reaches down to turn Jack's body over, but the pieces just ... crumble ... and Daniel hears himself make a sound he doesn't want to catalogue. Then Teal'c is moving, standing, reaching out to lift Daniel to his feet as well.

"We must dial Earth at once, Daniel Jackson."

The air smells of charcoal and the faint scent of burned flesh. He can barely feel the touch of Teal'c's hands, and he can't stop staring at the _thing_ that was Jack. Teal'c shakes him roughly and he gasps.

"Daniel Jackson! We must dial Earth at once! I believe Stargate Command to be under attack!"

Teal'c drags him roughly down the steps to the DHD, and by the time he reaches it, Daniel's head is clear enough to do what he has to do. He dials Earth. Sam set the Gate computers up with an answerback system a few months after the Program started that could ping the destination Gate and get its Point of Origin Glyph, so he doesn't have to worry about finding it on any of the planets they visit anymore. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven...

No lock.

He waits for the light to fade in the DHD and tries again, the impossible horror of Jack's death a counterpoint in his mind to the automatic motion of his hands. He keeps trying, mechanically, until Teal'c takes his hands -- gently this time -- and stops him.

The Stargate isn't working.

"I-- We-- Jack--" he stops. He gestures at the DHD. "Teal'c, I... What do we do?"

He looks into Teal'c's dark eyes, and knows Teal'c is just as lost as he is. What they were going to do when everything went wrong was always Jack's job. Or Sam's. She's Jack's Second in Command. Teal'c was First Prime to Apophis until they freed him. It's like being a general, except the _Goa'uld_ don't allow their Jaffa that much independence. Teal'c commanded armies in the field, though. Led men into battle, led them to death in the name of a false god.

At the SGC, he's a sergeant. Tech Sergeant Teal'c, according to all the paperwork, so Jack and Sam both outrank...

Sam was back at the SGC when this happened.

The blast of energy that killed Jack came through the open wormhole from Earth. From where Sam was.

The DHD lit up -- so the Stargate is working -- but it wouldn't lock. That means there's something wrong with the destination Gate. The one on Earth. Not wrong as in 'the iris is closed,' and not wrong as in there's been a power failure at the SGC; neither of those things would interfere with the DHD getting a lock. Wrong as in _the Stargate might not be there._

He doesn't want to think that, but he can't stop himself.

"Is it not the custom among the _Tau'ri_ to bury the dead, Daniel Jackson?" Teal'c asks quietly.

All he can do is nod.

#

They walk a little distance away from the Gate and find a clear flat space. Teal'c gets out the entrenching tool and begins to dig. They only have the one, so all Daniel can do is watch. After a few minutes, he shucks off his pack and his vest and starts hunting around for suitable stones to cover the grave with. His mind keeps circling back around the three facts that now define his world: a blast of energy came through the Stargate while it was still connected to Earth. They couldn't get a lock on Earth after that.

And Jack is dead.

 _I guess we won't be having that conversation after all, now, will we?_ he thinks to himself.

And he doesn't know whether to laugh or cry or scream.

#

He can only carry a few stones each trip. One time, when he comes back, Teal'c is gone. One time, when he comes back, Teal'c is filling the hole in again. He helps, getting down on hands and knees to shovel the loose earth back in over what lies beneath, and when they're finished, the two of them walk back and forth across the earth, tamping it down, then lay the stones across it and walk across them again. There weren't enough for a cairn, but he found enough to make a top layer over the fresh-turned earth, to mark the grave.

When they're done, he goes back to the Gate.

Teal'c follows.

#

He reaches out and touches the dial of the DHD, and that's when it really starts to sink in. Not just Jack's death, but all the rest. Something terrible has happened at the SGC, and there's no way for him to get home and find out what's happened to his friends. The two of them are trapped here somewhere on an alien planet and he doesn't even know quite where he is.

He doesn't know what to do.

"What destination do you wish to choose?" Teal'c asks.

"I... Do you think it will work at all?" He hadn't thought of trying to go somewhere else. He'd only been thinking about getting back to Earth.

"I do not know, Daniel Jackson. Nevertheless, I feel it would be prudent to make the attempt."

He looks at Teal'c, hesitating. What if the whole Gate system's down? The SGC doesn't really understand it, although they use it. What if the whole system's just crashed?

"Should we wait?" he asks hesitantly. "Maybe...?" If it's only a malfunction, they'll fix it. Send someone. And as soon as he thinks that, he wishes he hadn't. Because if it's only a malfunction, then Sam, oh, god, Sam will come through and ask where Jack is, and what would he say? How could she live with that?

"If our enemies have taken possession of Stargate Command, once they have consolidated their position on Earth, they may seek us out," Teal'c answers. "I believe we have waited here as long as we dare."

Daniel nods. Teal'c's right. The two of them need to leave. He knows hundreds of Gate addresses. He's memorized most of the Abydos Cartouche Room. He just has to pick one. "The Land of Light," he says slowly. "Councilor Tuplo said we would always be welcome. And Drey'auc and Rya'c are there, aren't they?"

"Indeed," Teal'c agrees. His voice gives nothing away.

Daniel dials. His hands start to shake as he presses the glyphs. He doesn't know what would be worse: if the Stargate doesn't work or if it does.

Seventh symbol. And the Gate engages. Both of them simply stare at it for a moment, then he walks up the steps to the Stargate. There's no mark on the stones where Jack's body lay. No blood. Nothing. The MALP is still there, but, like Jack's MP5 -- that's gone now; Teal'c must have buried it with Jack -- it's been fried. The side nearest the Gate is blackened; the treads have melted. All the glass in the panels is gone. There's some on the stone, tiny melted droplets. Other pieces are fragments, cool enough at the moment of explosion to shatter and retain their integrity. He touches the MALP, hesitantly. It's warmer than the action of sunlight on metal would account for.

For a moment longer he stands, facing the shimmering pool of light. _We don't leave anyone behind._ Jack always said that. But they're leaving Jack behind now, leaving him forever. Daniel takes a deep breath and walks through.

On the other side it's dark; he'd forgotten it would be. But torches burn beside the Gate, so there's light to see by. As soon as Teal'c is through and the event horizon goes dark Daniel turns back to the DHD and dials Earth again before Teal'c can stop him. Maybe it will work from here.

No lock.

"That was most unwise, Daniel Jackson. If an enemy--"

"I don't care!" His voice cracks, but it isn't Teal'c he's angry with. It's Jack. How could Jack die before he'd explained -- before he'd given Daniel a chance to explain?

He turns away.

The path back to the Light Side is neatly kept, edged with lamps of glowing pale stone. The Mykene don't use glass for many things, but they work alabaster in the traditional fashion of the Ancient World. The two of them walk through the dark forest toward the Light Side, then up the hill toward the Palace.

Teal'c's symbiote will protect him from the histaminalytic virus here, and the SGC has taught the Mykene to refine an herbal cure from native plants, so not only is there no chance Daniel will devolve again, he won't have any allergic reactions to the local plants once his supply of antihistamines runs out.

He's going to have to think about things like that now.

By the time they're close, Daniel can see Melosha on the steps, waving to them. He raises a hand in return, but he can't bring himself to wave back.

#

High Councilor Tuplo and his wife Leedora greet the two of them with puzzled delight. After a moment, Tuplo asks them where Jack and Sam are.

Teal'c says they are not with them, then regards the Mykene court impassively. Tuplo waits for more, but when it becomes obvious there isn't going to _be_ more, says he will send for Drey'auc and Rya'c. While they're waiting for them, Daniel explains to Tuplo he and Teal'c need to stay here for a while, if it's okay with the Mykene. Tuplo is delighted to have them as guests, and says they may stay as long as they wish. Daniel thanks Tuplo for his kindness; the words come automatically to him, but he feels as if someone far away is speaking.

Rya'c is so happy to see his father again. He shows off the baseball glove Jack gave him. Jack had been going to teach Rya'c baseball, but there'd never been time. Drey'auc is more suspicious about the reason for Teal'c's unannounced arrival.

"Something," Daniel begins, knowing the explanation must be made, though it's an effort to speak, as if speaking is what makes the events real, "something may have happened on Earth. We aren't really sure. We were on a mission through the Stargate--" he knows Tuplo's people are a little vague on the concept of 'planet' "--when there was an accident and we, um, well, we couldn't get home."

"What about the others who travel with you?" Drey'auc asks him sharply. SG-1 rescued her and Rya'c from Chulak. They spent time in the SGC afterward. She knows there should be four of them here now.

Daniel opens his mouth to answer, and he simply ... can't.

"Colonel O'Neill is dead. Captain Carter was at Stargate Command and her fate is unknown, as is the fate of the _Tau'ri_."

Daniel winces before he can help himself. _The fate of the Tau'ri is unknown._ Tuplo looks puzzled, trying to figure this out, but if he's waiting for more information from Teal'c, he won't get it.

"Have your enemies followed you here?" Tuplo asks, after a moment.

"They have not," Teal'c says firmly.

 _I hope they haven't,_ Daniel amends silently.

"Husband, what will you do?" Drey'auc asks.

"A wise warrior considers before he acts," Teal'c answers.

#

The sun never sets in the Land of Light. The sun never moves, actually, because the planet doesn't rotate. The habitable area of the planet is a belt of land about fifty miles wide that circles the entire planet at the equator. A little more of it is on the light side than the dark. Outside of that, the entire planet is desert where nothing lives. You can only see the stars from the forest, so he's gone back there to look at them. It would take Sam to tell him which one is home from here, and he's starting to believe Sam is dead.

That everyone on Earth is dead.

Daniel stares up through the trees, focusing on the lights in the sky, trying not to remember the sights and sounds of this day. How all that was left of Jack's body crumbled and broke like soft charcoal when Teal'c shifted it. How the small black flakes shimmered and sifted through Teal'c's fingertips and the intense burned scent made Daniel's nose itch.

He needs to think of Jack alive, and so he looks at the stars. Jack used to say he'd look for Abydos, in the year he was retired and Daniel was there. No way for Jack to tell which light in the sky was Abydos, either.

Jack kissed him. And now it's too late.

Teal'c has gone to Drey'auc's house. At least he has a family to return to. Since his return from Abydos, Daniel's family has become Stargate Command and SG-1. They're gone. At least he thinks they're gone. He hugs himself tightly, trying to crush away the latest in a series of stunning losses. He's not a soldier; god knows he's gotten used to death since the first time he saw the suns in the sky of Abydos, but what he doesn't know is what to _do_ about it. He never really has. Maybe he should just go back to Abydos and tell Kasuf he's failed. Except the Abydos Gate is buried and he can't get there.

He keeps trying to come up with a plan, something to do, but all the plans he can come up with start with getting back to the SGC somehow. And he can't do that.

#

"Daniel Jackson."

He comes to with a gasp, flailing, and realizes he'd fallen asleep where he was, sitting on the ground in the forest. He's cold and stiff and he's knocked his glasses askew. He straightens them carefully. He broke them once before -- on Abydos -- and realized then he'd never be able to get them fixed. It's even truer now.

Teal'c is standing over him, holding a lantern. He holds out a hand. Daniel takes it, and Teal'c draws him to his feet.

"Uh. Teal'c." His voice sounds rusty and his throat aches. "I'm sorry. I came out here to look at the stars and I fell asleep."

"It is most unwise to sleep in the forest. Since the departure of the Touched, I am told many large forest creatures have become bold and importunate in their behavior."

Right now, being eaten by wolves sounds like an improvement. "How did you find me?" he asks, in order to change the subject. He's nowhere near any of the forest paths.

"Councilor Tuplo informed me you had mentioned wishing to go for a walk. It was a simple matter to follow your trail. Come."

They walk back out into the eternal day. When Daniel checks his watch, he realizes it's almost tomorrow. He tries to imagine how the day could have gone. Jack would have taken them on a brisk five-mile hike, on a heading directly away from the Stargate, because if there were anything to see on PX8-925, it would probably have been built in line-of sight of the Stargate. Jack would complain about trees, and that he was bored, and about anything else he could think of, but he would never have stopped watching for trouble, and his hands would never have left his gun. Eventually -- if Daniel were lucky, and Jack was willing to talk -- he would have sent Teal'c on ahead to see if it was worth going any further.

And here Daniel's imagination fails, because he doesn't know what Jack would have said.

There's a heaviness in his chest and a tightness in his throat. The Stargate doesn't work, the SGC and all of Earth may be gone, Jack is dead, and what hurts worst -- the way a pebble in your shoe hurts more than a broken ankle, something Daniel knows for an absolute fact -- is he doesn't know the outcome of a conversation that now can never take place. He stumbles, and Teal'c's hand is under his elbow to steady him. he looks up.

Teal'c rarely shows much emotion. It's not as if the Jaffa don't have them; it's that they're private things. Daniel hasn't gotten a lot of opportunities to study Jaffa culture -- and now, he realizes, he probably never will -- but he knows anything the Jaffa display openly, their _Goa'uld_ overlords can use against them. Jack called the Jaffa 'myrmidons' once. He'd been surprised to hear Jack use the word, but it had fit. The _Goa'uld_ do their best to turn the Jaffa into insects. The Jaffa respond by living their lives behind a mask.

Eyes show behind masks.

Teal'c's eyes are on him now, filled with compassion, and Daniel wonders, suddenly, if Teal'c ever _knew_. If Daniel had looked at Jack in the wrong way in the wrong place. He'd tried not to. He nods shortly, accepting the support, physical and unspoken. He's fine. He'll survive. He's always survived.

"There is a Jaffa word that means 'revenge' in the _Tau'ri_ language. Do you know it?" Teal'c asks suddenly.

" _Kel'mar_ ," Daniel says. "You taught it to me."

"You know that it also means 'lifeblood,'" Teal'c says. "That is because, to the Jaffa, revenge is life. We will discover who has killed our brother O'Neill. And they will pay. This I promise you, Daniel Jackson. _Kel'mar_."

Daniel's breath hitches in his chest. He takes a deep breath and suddenly he's lightheaded. He blinks hard. His eyes are wet, but -- thank god -- it's not quite tears.

Revenge.

He's tried so hard not to hate anybody. He thinks of Chulak; of the tank of _Goa'uld_ larva exploding in a hail of bullets; thinks of how he felt in that moment, the gun hot in his hands. He doesn't want to be that person again.

"Teal'c," he says. "We can't... become the _Goa'uld_. No matter what it costs us."

Teal'c continues to regard him silently.

"I will take you to where you may rest," Teal'c says at last.

Later Daniel will remember that moment and wonder if there was anything different he could have said. Something that would have changed things.

#

It's almost a month later when Teal'c disappears. The Mykene have an elaborate and accurate system of clocks -- the Ancient Egyptians did, too, so it's not that surprising -- and mark the passage of the day with horns and gongs. Daniel thinks the unceasing noontide in which the Land of Light exists is driving him slowly mad. He wants days and nights. Boundaries. Something more substantial to mark the passage of time than atonal music. He has his watch, but it's not quite enough.

He's spent the intervening time in not-very-productive ways. He dials out on the DHD every third day. Earth never responds.

He works in the fields. It's something to do. The Mykene's Cretan ancestors imported much of their grain; they grew barley and grapes on Crete, they had sheep and goats and cattle. The Mykene have wheat in addition to barley, and they also grow flax. Both wheat and flax require extensive irrigation; Daniel has suggested improvements to the system of canals and waterwheels that irrigate the step-terraces. Terrace farming is Meso-American or Chinese, not Cretan; the farming system looks more Asian than anything else. It's an interesting cultural cross-pollenization, but there's nobody left to care.

When he's not in the fields, he's in the Mykenesian archives; he finally has all the time he's ever wanted to study this culture. Is knowledge useless when there's nobody to share it with?

Still, it occupies his time.

The Mykene haven't advanced much past the Early Iron Age, and that's going to be a problem for them soon: the histaminalytic virus apparently kept their population down. Leedora has told him none of the Touched ever bore or fathered children that she knows of, and about a third of the population fell to the Touched virus every year. Now all those people will be breeding, and no more will get the virus, and the Land of Light just isn't that big. There's no place for the Mykene to go when the arable strip becomes overcrowded, either, other than through the Stargate, and the best time to do that is _before_ they wreck their planet. He tries to explain the concept of 'population explosion' to Tuplo, but he isn't really sure how well he gets the concept across. For the first time in living memory, all of the members of a generation -- barring accident -- will live to grow old: how can that be a problem?

He wants resources he doesn't have. If Janet were here, she could explain about birth control. If Sam were here, she could improve their farming technology to buy them time. If Jack were here, he could ... be Jack.

He wants Jack desperately. He wants to _know_.

But what Daniel wants most of all, on the day he hikes down from the palace (where he's living) to Drey'auc's house in the town, is to know where Teal'c went and why he didn't tell him he was going. All Drey'auc can tell him is Teal'c left that 'morning'. Drey'auc knows Teal'c took his staff weapon, but went dressed in native robes. He left no message for Daniel.

Daniel looks for Teal'c at several places in the town and the surrounding fields, already knowing it will be useless, before he goes to the Stargate. There's nothing there -- no clue to where Teal'c went -- but he's pretty sure by now Teal'c went somewhere through the Stargate, and Daniel knows Teal'c knows only a limited number of addresses.

Where?

And why?

He dials Earth again.

No lock.

No Gate. Or buried Gate. And either way, a disaster of epic proportions and he'll never know just what happened because to know he'd have to be on Earth. And since Earth apparently no longer has a working Stargate, that would take a spaceship and a pilot who could find Earth.

He walks away from the Gate. He wishes he were willing to allow himself the fantasy that Jack is here, alive, just behind him in the forest, that he could ask Jack what the hell is going on and what to do. Not because he needs to be led by the hand and can't take care of himself. He's a better survivor than Jack thinks.

Thought.

But because Jack has a certain perspective Daniel knows he lacks, particularly on Teal'c. Jack understood Teal'c in a way Daniel knows he never will. Sometimes they thought the same way. Jack would know what Teal'c was thinking now.

 _Daniel. You're stranded in the middle of nowhere. What do you have and what do you need?_ For a moment he wonders if he's starting to hallucinate, but no. Just remembering. Jack would always ask him these kinds of stupid questions.

No. Not stupid. He _is_ stranded in the middle of nowhere. Both he and Teal'c are. _What do you have and what do you need?_

They have a Stargate that will go anywhere in the Gate Network but Earth.

They need a spaceship to get to Earth.

Teal'c has gone to Chulak.

He wants to follow Teal'c immediately, and knows he doesn't dare. He's been to Chulak twice. The first time SG-1 just walked right in -- that was before the _Goa'uld_ knew what kind of a threat the _Tau'ri_ could be. The second time they sneaked in disguised as members of the priesthood of Apophis, and because of that the Chulak Gate is guarded all the time now. Daniel speaks fluent _Goa'uld_ , but he's not completely certain he can bluff his way past the guards at the Gate no matter how he's dressed. Maybe Drey'auc knows something that will help.

He returns to her house and tells her what he has guessed.

"My husband is a fool," Drey'auc says bitterly. "You must not follow him into folly."

"He might need help," Daniel says.

"How can you help him?" Drey'auc says. "If you go to Chulak, you will instantly be known for what you are. You are not Jaffa. You wear those things upon your face," she says, indicating his glasses.

"I'll leave them here. Drey'auc, I've _seen_ humans on Chulak, or, well, people who looked like me -- not Jaffa warriors, not tattooed. Who were they?"

Drey'auc tells Daniel all she knows of these _lo'tar_. It isn't much. The _Goa'uld_ have human slaves who live with them and serve them as the Jaffa do. Their human slaves are not branded with their overlord's mark, for many of them are destined to become hosts. Often the most trusted of them are sent on missions for their masters; the Jaffa hesitate to offer them any impediment for fear of the tales they will carry back to the _Goa'uld_. With luck, Daniel can pass for one of these servants.

#

He goes back to the Palace and changes to the clothes he wears for working in the fields. The Minoan kilt and the Egyptian kilt are similar enough, he thinks, that it will pass, and the sandals are good and sturdy. He remembers how cold it was the last time he was on Chulak, and adds a heavy hooded cloak. It's thick and heavy, new wool, dyed red. Tuplo gave it to him for walking in the forest, but he's never worn it. Only at the last minute does he remember to take off his glasses and wristwatch. He looks down at his wrist and sighs. There's a wide pale band against the tan. Maybe no one will notice.

He probably ought to paint his face -- the Egyptians were and the _Goa'uld_ are both great believers in cosmetics -- but he'd have to go find makeup and probably explain why he wanted it and there just isn't time. Teal'c already has most of a day's head start on him. He bundles the cloak up under one arm and heads back to the Stargate.

When he steps through, there's nobody in sight on the other side. For a moment he has the absurd conviction everybody on Chulak is dead, but then realizes, _no, there must be another explanation._ If it were as simple as that, Teal'c would already have come back. He shudders in the cold -- it's a shock, after the eternal Mediterranean summer of the Land of Light -- and shakes the cloak out, wrapping it around himself and clasping it at the throat with its long bronze pin. It's warm, but it makes his bare skin itch everywhere it touches. He pulls it closely around himself anyway.

He hesitates, looking up the deserted roadway. Without his glasses everything is blurry; he can't see very far ahead, and the road twists and turns; there could be people just out of sight. Thanks to Master Bra'tac, though, he also knows a back way. If he cuts through the forest and follows the river, he can come up on the village through the refugee camps on the south. It might be safer. He makes up his mind.

It's a long slow hike to the camp -- about twice the distance it would be by road -- and he regrets -- several times -- leaving his glasses behind. The cloak covers most of him, but his legs and feet get thoroughly scratched. He wonders if the trade-off is worth it.

It's evening when he gets to where he remembers the refugee camp being -- the Jaffa have their social castoffs, just like any other society -- but the camp isn't there. He takes cover, though red isn't the best color for hiding in, and looks around. He knows the camp should be here. He was never at the site, but it was described in the mission reports. It was a big place, along the bank of the river, and visible from the city. He can see the city and the river, so he should be able to see the camp.

No camp.

But after a few minutes in hiding, watching, he can see it _was_ here. It's been gone for at least a month, and probably more, and the ground here was barren to begin with, but he doesn't need his glasses to make out the faint regular marks of tentpole holes, and, working back from that, the outline of a whole temporary city. Teal'c may be their tracker, but Daniel is an archaeologist. The signs of habitation will always be clear to him.

Okay. The camp is gone. Why? Moved? Destroyed? At least Drey'auc and Rya'c are safe.

And he needs to get into the city. Not only to find Teal'c, but because it's starting to get dark and he'll never survive a night out in the open dressed like this. He'd been hoping to pick up some gossip at the camp -- by eavesdropping if nothing else -- but now that's out. He'll have to go directly into the city. There's one person at least who can help him there.

#

It's after dark by the time he can actually get to Master Bra'tac's house, and the streets are deserted. All the houses are dark as well, and if he didn't hear quiet voices coming from behind the shutters of one or two of the buildings, he'd really start to believe he was completely alone here on Chulak. As it is, it's pretty clear something big is going on.

He reaches Master Bra'tac's house. It's as dark as all the rest. He taps quietly at the door, but there's no answer, and the door is locked. No way to get it open; Sam was the one who knew how to pick locks, and Daniel bets the locks on Chulak would defeat even her skills. He doesn't dare stay on the street long; he's the only one here.

He goes around the side of the house and down the alley. As he remembered, there's a back door. It's locked too, but there are windows above, and they only have shutters.

The climb is a nightmare -- he's never had any head for heights -- and when he gets there, the shutters on the window are barred. But the Mykene haven't gotten around to inventing buttons; he works loose the long bronze pin on his cloak and uses it to lift the interior bar holding the shutters closed. Housebreaking; Sam would be proud. Clinging to the wall and the sill, he swings the shutter out and gets himself and his flapping cloak inside, closing the shutter again -- and bars it -- all within a matter of minutes.

(Jack would be proud of him, too.)

Of course, then he's in a pitch-dark room. But that's what shutter-louvers are for. He stops and listens as he re-pins his cloak, but he hears nothing. If Master Bra'tac were here, he would have heard him.

"It's Daniel," he whispers, just in case Bra'tac is waiting outside the door to hit him. "Teal'c's friend. From Earth."

Nothing. The house is empty. He looks around the room.

Jaffa don't sleep, but they _kel'no'reem_. This room is set up for that; cushions on the floor and candles everywhere. He has to hunt to find a way to light them -- no Bic lighters or matches on Chulak -- but finally finds flint and steel and a small pot of tinder. It's bizarre; the Jaffa fly around in spaceships and fight with energy weapons and live in homes out of the Early Middle Ages. It takes Daniel half an hour to get the tinder going that will allow him to light the twist of rag that will let him light a couple of candles.

Candle in hand, he explores the house. Everything is shut up as if Bra'tac expects to be gone for a very long time. The proof is the fact the kitchen is completely empty of food. There's a pump and a sink, though, and the pump still works. Daniel washes his face and hands and drinks from a trophy cup that looks as if it's solid gold. He peers closely at it, but in the dimness, without his glasses, he cannot read the inscription.

Where the hell is everybody? And if they're all gone, where is Teal'c? Isn't this the first place Teal'c would come?

Well, obviously not. Or if he did, he knew how to lock the front door behind him when he left.

Daniel paces through the deserted rooms, poking through chests and cupboards. There are clothes in some of the chests; he holds up the robes for size and then begins to re-dress himself. He'll be warmer this way, and it will make it easier to pass for one of the locals.

And what then?

 _I have no idea_ , he admits miserably to himself. He's scared. This is enemy territory, and there's no backup, and no hope of rescue. He's here to rescue Teal'c, and he didn't even bring his gun.

That was stupid.

Dressed as a Jaffa -- a skinny, non-tattooed Jaffa -- he makes one last pass through the house, but there are no answers here to any of his questions. If he wants to know where Teal'c is, he needs to go back out onto the streets. The Palace is the obvious destination. He goes back upstairs to blow out the candles he left burning there, then carries his last candle downstairs again. Going out by the alley door will be safest, and he can risk leaving it unlocked. He has no way to lock it, anyway.

He blows out the last candle before he leaves.

#

He does his best to look confident as he approaches the Palace. Unlike every other place else here, it's brightly lit; the only other place showing lights is another smaller structure most of the way up the hillside. It could be anything, including another part of the Palace.

He doesn't want to be captured, but if he's going to look for Teal'c he has to go inside the Palace. And if Apophis is there, Apophis might recognize him. If Sha're and Skaara are there....

He barely restrains himself from rushing inside to see. But they aren't Sha're and Skaara now, he reminds himself. They're _Goa'uld_. His wife has been possessed by Amaunet. He doesn't know which _Goa'uld_ has taken Skaara. If they see him, they will know him, yes. And the _Goa'uld_ who have enslaved them will force them to order him killed. He looks at the building higher on the mountain again. What is it?

He has some idea of the risk involved in entering the Palace. He has no idea of what the smaller structure is. In that case, Daniel thinks, it makes sense to start there. Maybe he'll overhear something useful. At least he'll be able to rule it out as a place where Teal'c is. And sneaking into the Palace -- and down to the dungeon -- might be easier later at night. (Although since Jaffa don't sleep, he doubts it.)

His breath smokes on the night air as he makes a wide circle around the Palace. He's still wearing the red cloak -- red is a dark color at night, and it's warmer than anything he found at Master Bra'tac's house -- but he's still freezing. He doesn't see any Serpent Guards, though torches burn on the Palace steps.

That's odd. The _Goa'uld_ are constantly at war with each other. Ra and Apophis were enemies. Would a _Goa'uld_ leave his throneworld undefended? Or maybe the real question is: _why_ would a _Goa'uld_ leave his throneworld undefended?

He's so convinced there's no one guarding Chulak that he nearly runs right into a patrol.

#

They aren't Serpent Guards, and that's what saves his life. They're making enough noise that he hears them long before they approach. He throws himself flat on the ground and they walk right past him. Six Jaffa women. Five are carrying staff-weapons. One is carrying a lantern on a pole. They're all wearing boots and trousers and chain-mail shirts with sashes across them.

They're talking about the war. How it will be a glorious victory for the god Apophis and Prince Klorel and gain them much new territory. How, perhaps, many of the warriors who serve them can gain enough honor in the fighting to be granted wives. They laugh and tease one another as they pass.

Daniel lies perfectly still, heart hammering, until the sound of their footsteps and their laughter has faded. Apophis -- and Klorel -- have gone to war. With who?

He's afraid he knows.

After Chulak, Apophis tried to attack Earth through the Stargate for days, then stopped. He must have thought he'd destroyed them until he ran into SG-1 on the Nox homeworld. But he never tried to attack the Earth Stargate again. He must have realized it was useless.

This time, Daniel is very much afraid, Apophis has gone to Earth by ship.

He gets to his feet and continues onward, looking for a way up the mountain.

He finds it at last; a narrow pathway. It's treacherous in the dark, and he moves slowly. There's no place to hide and no way to turn back now. He's pretty sure, though, this isn't another part of the Palace. The façade is brightly lit by torches, and he'd be a damned poor archaeologist if he couldn't recognize a temple when he saw one.

Time to bluff.

He strides up the steps, feigning a confidence he doesn't feel. The outer courtyard is obviously where the common people come to pray to Apophis. There's serpent-imagery everywhere, and an enormous throne, currently empty. The entire place looks like a stage set: what the Egyptians would have done if they'd had infinite amounts of money and access to modern construction equipment. Everything that isn't gold is black.

_"‹Who dares to enter the shrine of the god Apophis at this hour?›"_

The woman appears while he's looking for a way deeper into the temple, because if they're holding Teal'c here, it's got to be in one of the back rooms. The woman is dressed in a flowing white costume, but the midsection is cut out, exposing the large X-shaped opening of her symbiote pouch. He realizes he's looking for her navel, and she doesn't have one.

 _"‹There was no one at the chappa'ai,›"_ Daniel answers, which might be evasive, but is also the exact truth.

 _"‹Foolish child, did you expect there would be in time of war?›"_ the woman answers. _"‹All the warriors are with my lord Apophis and his great fleet.›"_

Oh, that doesn't sound good at all.

 _"‹Then my message is no longer needed, and I will return to the court of my lord and tell him so,›"_ Daniel says. He's cudgeling his brain, trying to decide which _Goa'uld_ to name as his patron if she asks. He has to be bringing a message _to_ Apophis, not _from_ him, or this will never work. He wishes now he'd asked Teal'c more about _Goa'uld_ politics when he had the chance, but Teal'c had always seemed to reluctant to talk about his past, and Daniel had always thought there'd be time.

He's run out of time now.

 _"‹Nor is the god Apophis here, as your lord should surely know,›"_ the woman continues.

 _"‹It is not for us to question them,›"_ Daniel says desperately.

She bows her head. _"‹No. Forgive me, stranger. I do not question the ways of the gods. I am sorry you have come so far to such poor welcome. Come with me. I shall see to it you are given refreshment, and arrange for you to be escorted back to the chappa'ai as soon as the suns rise, if that is suitable.›"_

 _"‹Yes,›"_ Daniel says, _"‹That will be very suitable. My lord will be pleased for your care.›"_

_"‹I am Shau'nac, High Priestess of the God Apophis. Is it permitted to know your name, stranger?›"_

This, at least, he's ready for. _"‹My name is Dan'yel.›"_ They called him that on Abydos.

Shau'nac doesn't ask him any more questions -- apparently Apophis doesn't encourage curiosity, which is one thing in Daniel's favor. Shau'nac leads him through the temple -- he sees a number of Jaffa, all women, and several of the Gate-priesthood in their snakeskin-patterned robes, but still no Serpent Guards. Maybe they don't have them in the temple. Maybe they're all off with Apophis and his 'great fleet.' She brings him to a room that seems to be a retiring chamber of some sort; cushions, candles, low tables.

 _"‹"If you will wait here, Dan'yel, I shall return with refreshment. ›"_ She pauses and considers for a moment. _"‹If you need to sleep, a chamber can be prepared for you.›"_

_"‹Thank you. But I do not think I could sleep.›"_

Shau'nac nods, bows, and leaves. Daniel waits until he's sure she's gone, then slips out after her.

He looks into a couple of rooms, searching quickly. One is empty, one is not, but the inhabitants of the occupied room don't see him. There's another empty room with a large tank at its center, but the tank is empty and dry. When he encounters people in the hall, he bows and nods, and they pass by without comment. Half of them have already seen him with Shau'nac, and the other half just assume he has the right to be here.

He'd like to get his hands on a staff weapon, but he doesn't see any. Still, he's almost finished searching the temple -- not finding Teal'c -- and he's sure now Apophis isn't on Chulak. That means either Teal'c's in the Palace, or they're in real trouble, because if Teal'c isn’t on Chulak, then where is he?

He's on his way back up the hall, heading toward the exit, when he hears Shau'nac's voice.

_"‹...spy. The Prince would do such a thing. This talk of a message is obviously a ruse.›"_

Daniel flattens himself against the wall to listen, but he can't hear the other speaker.

_"‹How can I do such a thing? My lord would have me killed for offering such an insult, even to the worst of his enemies. He is a god, Teal'c!›"_

Teal'c?

Daniel decides to take the chance. It can't be that common a name. He's standing in front of the door, trying to figure out how to open it, when it opens in his face.

Teal'c is standing right behind Shau'nac.

"Uh... hi," he says.

"Daniel Jackson." Teal'c doesn't sound happy to see him.

The two of them manage to reassure Shau'nac he isn't a spy -- though she isn't particularly happy to find out he's _Tau'ri_ , either, since it seems she's loyal to Apophis. But apparently she and Teal'c have enough of a history that the temple here was the first place Teal'c came, and he was sure Shau'nac wouldn't turn him in.

Teal'c has news, and none of it's good.

Daniel spent a year of happiness on Abydos with Sha're. He talked to her -- of course he did; she was his _wife_. She was endlessly curious about the life her husband had led before he came to live among her people.

He told her everything he knew. All the history of Earth, everything about his life. She asked so many questions. About his wristwatch. His ballpoint pen. Skaara's lighter. It made Daniel understand how little he knew about his own culture. He cudgeled his mind for scraps of information, trying to make Earth real for her: cars, airplanes, movies. Telling her it wasn't magic, it was _science._

Amaunet knows it all, now. Armed with the knowledge Amaunet ripped from her host's mind, Apophis became convinced the _Tau'ri_ were an even graver threat than the _Goa'uld_ had first realized -- a serious enough threat that the _Goa'uld_ should bury their differences and form an alliance the like of which the _Goa'uld_ Empire has never seen. An alliance of all twelve System Lords, hundreds of motherships, thousands -- tens of thousands -- of Jaffa.

They've gone to destroy Earth.

Shau'nac knows all this because the _Goa'uld_ speak openly in front of the priesthood. She's told it all to Teal'c because she hopes the knowledge of the utter destruction of the _Tau'ri_ through the power of the gods will cause him to beg Apophis's mercy and repent.

"When-- When-- When did they--?" Daniel says. He's babbling, and he knows it, and he can't stop himself. Amaunet convinced Apophis to mobilize the System Lords to destroy Earth because of what he told Sha're.

"Five weeks ago, the last of Apophis's forces left for the place where the fleet was to gather. It would take them only a few days to reach Earth from _Ria'khet'niwet_ ," Teal'c says.

 _Battle city,_ Daniel translates automatically. "Do you know the address?" he asks automatically.

"Daniel Jackson, no one remains there," Teal'c says. "They will have struck against the _Tau'ri_ a month ago."

"A month ago," Daniel says numbly. The day Jack died. The day after which they couldn't dial in to Earth any more.

"Yes," Teal'c says.

Earth is gone.

"What are-- What will--" Daniel says.

"I do not doubt Apophis' enemies have betrayed him the moment victory was achieved. I must go to render what assistance I may at once," Teal'c says.

Daniel stares at him in shock, mouth dropping open. Teal'c's eyes flicker slightly, and Daniel remembers Shau'nac is still in the room with them. He hasn't heard her speak English, but that doesn't mean she doesn't know it.

"I, well, how are you going to do that, Teal'c?" he finally says.

"When the suns rise, we will go to Master Bra'tac's house. He has resumed his post as Apophis's First Prime, but he will have left armor and weapons behind, and will not begrudge me the use of them. Then we will depart through the Stargate."

"Well, I, uh, that sounds like a good plan," Daniel says weakly.

"Apophis will delight to welcome you," Shau'nac says firmly. "You will see, Teal'c. Our god can be a god of mercy as well as of wrath."

Teal'c inclines his head silently, and Daniel feels a faint thrill of horror. Shau'nac speaks English, and understood every word of what they were saying.

It's a long, uncomfortable, silent night, even after Shau'nac leaves to go about her duties. There's really nothing left to say.

#

In the morning, he and Teal'c head down into the town again; Shau'nac has given them breakfast in the temple, and Daniel eats, even though he's not very hungry. Teal'c tells him there's a curfew, and he was lucky -- 'indeed fortunate' is how Teal'c puts it -- not to have been caught and immediately executed the night before. They reach Master Bra'tac's house without being noticed -- Teal'c has pulled the hood of his cloak far forward to hide both his face and the gold tattoo that marks him as a First Prime -- and enter the house through the alley door.

"You don't think Master Bra'tac has really gone back to serve Apophis?" Daniel asks, now that it's finally safe to talk.

"I must believe his plan is to sow dissent between Apophis and the other System Lords. Their alliance was a fragile one, easily shattered once the moment of victory has passed. Even now they will be fighting among themselves."

"And what you told Shau'nac back there, that was just...?"

"We must quickly leave this place, Daniel Jackson."

Teal'c goes upstairs, and returns a few minutes later dressed as a Serpent Guard. He's carrying a staff weapon and something that looks like an odd sort of handgun. He shows Daniel how to use it, telling him one shot will stun, and two will kill.

"Odd to think of the _Goa'uld_ bothering with a weapon that would only stun someone," Daniel says, hefting it. It's oddly light.

"To receive the discharge of the weapon brings great pain, Daniel Jackson."

"Oh, well, I suppose that makes sense, then."

This time they leave by the front door, and begin the long walk back to the Stargate. In a world of women, children, and old men, few dare to stop or question one of Apophis's Serpent Guards and the servant who accompanies him. When they reach the Stargate, Teal'c retracts the hood of the serpent armor. It's safe for him to show his face now. The area's still deserted and they're both armed.

Teal'c reaches out and Daniel automatically hands him the _zat'nik'atel_ as he prepares to dial. In a few moments they'll be back and safe in the Land of Light.

"Tell Drey'auc and Rya'c I shall always hold them within my heart," Teal'c says. "Tell them to be strong."

"I, um, what?" Daniel says, pausing in mid-dial. "Aren't you going to... tell them yourself?"

"Our paths now diverge, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c says. His eyes burn into Daniel's, and Daniel sees something he missed before, though all the clues were there. In the answers Teal'c gave Shau'nac. In the answers he didn't give Daniel.

"Teal'c, don't you think we should, I don't know, discuss this?" he says quickly. "Because you know Jack--"

"O'Neill my brother is dead at the hands of Apophis," Teal'c says. "Only _kel'mar_ remains."

"Teal'c, you can't be serious! You have a wife, a child!"

"Drey'auc will understand what I must do. I fight now for her, and for all Jaffa. Even though I am known to be _shol'va_ to Apophis, I am privy to many of his secrets, and may yet trade them for my life. Rising in the ranks of service to another _Goa'uld_ , I shall do as Master Bra'tac has done, and sow dissent among the Jaffa from within. With the destruction of the _Tau'ri_ , this is the only hope of freedom for the Jaffa, and of vengeance for O'Neill."

"They'll kill you!"

"If I die, I die free. And we two shall be avenged. Go now."

"I am not letting you do this," Daniel says through gritted teeth.

The flash of light from the _zat'nik'atel_ is the last thing he sees.

#

He wakes up, aching all over, on the ground beside the Stargate in the Land of Light.

Teal'c isn't there. Teal'c has gone off to take on the entire _Goa'uld_ Empire by himself, and this time Daniel knows he won't be able to find him and bring him back again. He sits up, groaning.

He's lost all of them now.

Earth has been destroyed. That blast through the Stargate that killed Jack was the energy-wave from _Goa'uld_ cannon destroying Cheyenne Mountain pulsed through the open wormhole. Sam, Janet, General Hammond, everyone he said goodbye to that morning, all dead.

He may be the last _Tau'ri_ left alive.

There's no chance of getting back to Earth now. There may not even be an Earth left to get back _to_. If there is, it belongs to the _Goa'uld_ , which means if the Stargate ever locks onto Earth again and he steps through, he'll be walking back into slavery, torture, and death.

Eventually he gets up and goes to give Drey'auc Teal'c's last message.

#

He stays in the Land of Light for another week before he realizes he simply can't stay here for the rest of his life. He told Teal'c he didn't want to become like the _Goa'uld_ , but that was before he _knew_ they'd destroyed Earth. Maybe out there somewhere he can find some way to fight them. Not weapons. Weapons were always what Jack was after, and weapons have never saved a culture from destruction yet, though they've destroyed many. Somewhere through the Stargate there must be the knowledge that can fight the _Goa'uld_.

He knows hundreds of Gate addresses -- all the ones in the Abydos Cartouche Room, just to begin with. He even knows SG-1's next ten projected mission destinations. It's a place to start, before he goes on to randomly dialing addresses. At least he's fairly sure he can survive on those ten worlds.

Teal'c left all his SGC gear behind, and he combines his pack with Teal'c's. Aside from his Beretta he has no weapons, but there are extra canteens, MREs, all the important things (important in a world without Earth and home). It makes a heavy pack, but there's no place to resupply now.

Tuplo and his family press additional gifts upon him once he's told them of his decision. A bedroll. A supply of their antihistamine cordial.

"Die well," Drey'auc says to him, when she tells him goodbye at the Gate. Daniel wonders how many times she said that to Teal'c.

"You and Rya'c live well," he answers.

#

When he steps through the Gate -- really alone at last -- he automatically looks behind him for Jack and Sam -- new world, a mission of sorts, it's a reflex. They aren't there, and their absence is like a physical blow. He hopes Sam's death was as quick as Jack's. He hopes she had no idea what was coming. He's pretty sure she didn't. They were in radio contact. General Hammond would have told them. Warned them. Tried to call them home.

And Jack.

It keeps coming back to Jack at the end of the world. If Daniel has anything to be glad of, it's that Jack didn't live to see this and pledge himself to the same one-man-war Teal'c has. But Jack -- Daniel is certain of this -- would have found a way to make it work. He'd made it work on Abydos. Now Daniel will have to make it work, in his own way, for Jack's sake.

For Jack's memory.

#

The first planet has nothing but grass and trees. It takes him several hours to be sure of that, without a MALP to help him, but there's nothing anywhere within four hours' walk of the Gate. No sign of civilization at all.

It's still early. Afternoon. He goes on to the second planet on his list. It's early morning there. By his watch, he left the Land of Light in the early morning, arrived on the first planet at its midday and left in its late afternoon; its days must be longer than Earth's. Now it's morning again, though by his watch, the day is drawing to a close. There's a village on the second planet. The people are primitive, as on so many worlds SG-1 has visited. Abducted-and-resettled, as usual, from somewhere in the Mediterranean/Fertile Crescent area; Greek this time, he thinks. There are only a few Northern European transplants they've seen; no New World cultures at all. It can't be that they're too primitive for the _Goa'uld_ to choose, considering the level of civilization the _Goa'uld_ allow their victims to achieve.

He gets them to talk to him, asks the questions he's asked on a dozen worlds: _do you know the Goa'uld? How long has it been since they've been here?_

He's in the domain of the god Ares, apparently. Ares isn't here right now, but he'll be back in the time of the Red Moon. Ares takes his tribute in mined and refined _naquaadah_ , and every seventh year he takes seven youths and seven maidens as additional tribute. They never return. The refinery is primitive and life-destroying, its heat and gasses shortening lives. The mines are worse. It is all for the greater glory of the god Ares, Daniel is told.

The chief is happy to show him around, but Daniel's cautious questioning convinces him there's no way he's going to be able to easily change their minds about Ares' divinity. He keeps trying, though, as tactfully as he can, until the chief, equally tactfully, suggests it is time for him to leave. By then it's noon -- well into evening by his watch. He Gates back to PX8-925. Ghoulish, he supposes, to go there. But at least he knows it's safe. It's dusk when he arrives. Light enough for Daniel to make his way to Jack's grave.

There's no point, really. Jack isn't here. Daniel doesn't believe in ghosts or spirits or even Heaven, but this grave is at least a destination, a fixed compass point in a universe that has lost all meaning, and he needs that.

 _Welcome home,_ Danny, the fiction of Jack says in his mind, and the voice he hears holds all Jack's tired bitterness. He wonders if this is all that's left: a grave under alien stars. Will there be anyone left to bury him when he dies?

He's too tired to eat, but he makes coffee. It will be gone soon. He missed coffee on Abydos.

#

His dreams are unsettled. He's in the SGC. Jack is shouting at him, but Jack's voice is faint, and he can't hear. For some reason, Jack is yelling about dishes.

 _Accretion disk._ Suddenly Daniel is sitting upright, wide awake. _Accretion disk._

SG-1 wasn't the only team offworld that horrible day. He doesn't know where all the others were, but he knows where one was. P8X-987; a long-term mission for astronomical observation. The natives called the planet Hanka.

He doesn't know why it took him this long to remember. Jack would have thought of it at once. He packs up quickly and hurries back to the Gate. It's a few hours later there than it is on PX8-925. The sun is just rising as he walks down the steps of the Gate. He doesn't see the bodies at first.

He smells them.

It's a charnel reek; too many bodies left unburied for too long. The scent of apocalypse, carried across fields ripe with unfamiliar grain. He advances down the road, peering carefully ahead of him. _Goa'uld_? he wonders, but there would be no reason for the _Goa'uld_ to kill everyone in this fashion. They'd just blow the place up.

Everyone he sees is dead, and as he stops to stare at the rotting and half-eaten bodies tumbled in ditches and across the road -- dead where they've fallen -- he realizes he won't find SG-7 alive. Plague, this looks like. Quick. Nasty. And he realizes he needs to leave. Now. Every moment he stays increases his own chances of exposure to whatever killed the Hankans. And he isn't even carrying any antibiotics.

He runs back to the Stargate and hurries through. On the other side he sits on the steps, shaking, and scrubs every inch of his exposed skin with anti-bacterial wipes.

If that's not enough, he's dead.

He makes coffee -- there's a little more in the MREs but that's it -- drinks it, thinks. He wants to move on, but he's been exposed to whatever killed the Hankans, and he won't risk carrying that with him. Whatever killed SG-7 and the Hankans killed fast: he knows that because SG-7 didn't even have time to get back to the Gate; their bodies weren't there, not even a message warning people off. A short period of isolation should tell him whether or not he's safe. If he's been exposed, he'll start showing symptoms soon.

And die.

Nothing he can do about that one way or the other. All he has is aspirin, salt pills, T-3s, some electrolyte solution. Sam was their field medic; she would have been carrying the heavy kit: splints, morphine, field dressings. Nothing to stop a plague.

Think of something else.

There are -- were -- over a dozen SG teams by now, and at least a third of them were usually offworld, some of them for days, even weeks, at a time. But he doesn't know which ones were offworld that day. There's no central rendezvous point out here, either. He supposes there should be. Before he can stop himself, Daniel thinks he should mention that to Jack the next time he sees him, and draws a long shuddering breath.

Jack is dead.

If there are other Teams out here, they're trapped, too. They've either stayed where they were, or tried to move on, depending on what Gate addresses they know. Barring a miracle, he'll never find them. He stays on PX8-925 for another 24 hours. He doesn't develop any symptoms, though he's not sure he'd recognize any symptoms other than death. After that, he's pretty sure it's safe to move on.

If it's not -- if he's a carrier -- there's no way to know.

#

The next two planets on his list are deserted. No people, no sign there were ever people here. It takes him most of a day to decide that, and even so, he has the nagging feeling he still might be missing something. There's no way to be absolutely certain without technology he no longer has.

Sam could probably build something. But Sam is dead and Jack is dead and Earth is gone and thinking about it is going to drive him as crazy as Teal'c was in the end. He moves on.

On the next planet there are people at last; a village right at the base of the Gate. He meets a man called Hanno. Hanno asks him who he is, and why he's here. Daniel tells him he's an explorer, travelling through the Stargate. Hanno tells Daniel the _Goa'uld_ frequently come to his world to take slaves, but when they do, his people hide. Daniel is welcome to hide with them if the _Goa'uld_ come while he is here.

Daniel tells Hanno he believes the _Goa'uld_ destroyed his homeworld while he was away.

Hanno is sorry, but he sounds neither shocked nor surprised. His village is a small one, and though he tells Daniel there are other villages on this planet -- all clustered near the Stargate, of course -- the entire planetary population is undoubtedly less than that of Colorado Springs. But even if Hanno could imagine the billions of lives that have been lost in the destruction of Earth, it wouldn't impress him. Such obliteration is a fact of life in a galaxy dominated by the _Goa'uld_.

Daniel takes shelter with him and his people for the night. Hanno tells Daniel about his father, killed by Jaffa. He traces the Jaffa-mark for Daniel in the dust of the floor. Apophis. Daniel tells Hanno his wife and her brother were taken to be used as hosts by Apophis. Hanno nods. They share a common bond.

He stays with Hanno's people for almost two weeks, until he realizes he's only staying because they're kind and they're people. The thought of being alone, _only_ , has started to press down on him like an enormous weight. But if he stays, he'll be doing nothing to fight the _Goa'uld_. Hanno's people fight in the only way they can: by hiding. It's not enough for Daniel. The next morning, he says his farewells.

The next time he steps through the Gate it's onto the sands of a rare desert world. The Stargate platform is half buried in sand as fine as sugar and as white as snow. It stretches as far as the eye can see. The air shimmers in the heat; the temperature near the sand is at least 200 degrees; the sky is bleached to whiteness by a sun that seems blue-white -- not yellow -- in the sky. He looks around and steps quickly to the DHD to dial again. This place could kill him in an hour. Less.

Number Eight is P3X-989; a place that at least was inhabited once; Daniel steps through the Stargate into a room full of machines. He's barely begun to look around when he's knocked unconscious, and when he comes to, he's being held prisoner, gagged and adhered -- somehow -- to a table in a large room somewhere. It smells of dust and oil, and there's a distant sound of machinery.

His captor's name is Harlan; a fussy, funny, silly little man. Daniel would like him if Harlan weren't holding him prisoner and refusing to talk to him. He's assures Daniel he will let him go back through the Stargate soon, but he won't ungag him, so Daniel can't explain he doesn’t really want to leave. That stops being a joke very quickly, because apparently Harlan doesn't realize Daniel needs to eat and drink -- especially drink -- and Harlan holds him prisoner for three days. It's bizarre, because Harlan doesn't seem to mean to want to hurt him in any way.

No matter his intentions, Daniel is so weak by the time Harlan finally releases him that he can't even explain why he came here in the first place. He tries, but Harlan just hustles him back to the Stargate and shoves him through. Daniel rolls down the steps on the other side, colliding with his pack -- apparently Harlan sent that through first -- and it's only after he's gulped down most of the contents of his canteen that he realizes he's back on PX8-925. Daniel wonders how Harlan got the address, and why he didn't just send him back to the last place he'd been. Considering it was the desert world, he's just as glad he didn't.

He has a blinding headache. He digs through his pack for aspirin and gulps them down. They help a little. Coffee would help even more, but there isn't any. He's got dried meat and dried fruit and some cheese Hanno gave him. When that runs out, he'd better hope he finds another village willing to feed him.

When he can get to his feet again, he dials back to P3X-989, but he can't get a lock, and after several tries, he gives up. Obviously Harlan doesn't want him to come back. He never did quite figure out what _Comtraya_ meant. Possibly one of those words like _Aloha_ : 'Hello' and 'Goodbye.'

_Comtraya, Jack._

He stays for a few days on PX8-925 getting his strength back, before moving on to the next planet on his list. He spends too long there, just wandering among the trees, though it's empty like so many of the others, and he realizes he's losing heart. He's starting to believe he's simply going to fail at this task as he's failed at so much in his life. He could spend the rest of his life wandering from Stargate to Stargate and not even finding any people. The ones he's found so far are too cowed to fight back, or won't even talk to him. And who can blame them? The _Goa'uld_ have done a good job of keeping the Galaxy beaten down around them.

 _They rebelled on Abydos,_ he reminds himself. _Teal'c turned against Apophis on Chulak._

_Yes. Because Jack asked them to._

Oh, god, he wants Jack back.

He forces himself to move on. Her next destination is the last of those he remembers SGC-designations for. The last of SG-1's projected missions. P3R-233.

When he steps through it's pitch-dark except for the light of the Stargate; another indoor place full of machines, like P3X-989, and this time Daniel backs up warily and draws his gun. He'd really rather talk first this time before somebody knocks him unconscious. He realizes that when the wormhole disengages he'll be left in the dark, so then he's scrambling for his flashlight and barely gets it out before the Stargate shuts down. Then he sneezes violently, because the air is choked with dust. He drops his flashlight and almost drops his gun.

He retrieves the light -- if it had gone out he probably never would have found it again -- and stands on the steps of the Gate platform for several minutes, shining the light around. Nobody comes. The air is soft and dead, making his throat dry and his eyes itch, and he finally puts away his gun. The smooth floor beneath his feet is treacherous with soft dust, and, looking down, he sees no prints on the floor except those he's made himself. This place has been deserted for a very long time.

He steps away from the Stargate and starts to look around, feeling the same excitement he would have felt seeing this place in another lifetime. This place is an alien museum. They must have brought back things from _everywhere._

He finds one room filled with the treasures of Ancient Earth. Whoever these people were, they visited Earth long ago, explorers like himself, and brought their finds back here for study. Maybe they've even studied the _Goa'uld_. He can stay here, learn from them.

But one of the items on the table doesn't seem to fit with all the others. He picks it up curiously. It's a small gleaming object, bright and high-tech, and when he has it in his hand, it lights up. And something he hadn't noticed before, over in the corner, lights up too. It looks like a mirror set into a chunk of rock. He balances his flashlight on the edge of the table, and, still holding the alien object, walks over to it. It _looks_ like a mirror -- he can see the room behind him -- he just can't see himself.

There's something else off about the reflection, though, besides the fact he isn't in it. He reaches out and touches the surface of the mirror curiously, then gasps in surprise as he receives a faint electrical shock, running up from his fingertips through his entire body. The whole room is suddenly brighter. He turns around in alarm.

_Jack was always telling you not to touch things and he was right--_

#

P3R-233. Another number, another day. He's tired of this. He ought to retire. He should have been court-martialed. He thinks so. General Hammond doesn't.

_There was nothing you could do, Jack._

General Hammond's wrong.

They could have _not_ gone to P3X-866 in the first place. They could have _not_ believed Daniel was dead. They could have _not_ taken three days to figure out their heads were being messed with and get back there to rescue him.

He will never, as long as he lives, forget the moment the alien fish guy walked up out of the water, carrying Daniel's body. His _dead_ body.

He'd wanted to kill him. Carter had stopped him.

They took Daniel's body home. Fraiser has told O'Neill how Daniel died, but all he remembers about the report is Daniel didn't drown. He's buried in Chicago, next to his parents. O'Neill's still here, going through the motions.

He's lost people under his command before. He's lost a child. This is somehow an unholy combination of the two and something worse. He's lost someone he...

No.

He isn't even supposed to think that. Not even inside his head, where nobody can see. Not supposed to think about Daniel that way, or any man.

Though Daniel thought that way about men. He knows that. He read Daniel's file. All the nasty little secrets, searched out and brought to light, because Daniel was working in a top secret military program. He doubts Daniel ever thought they were nasty. He knows -- knew -- Daniel. Daniel loved unconditionally. He never had to hide half of what he wanted, until the Air Force took him and tucked him underneath a mountain, put a gun in his hand and tried to teach him to kill. They didn't manage that, not really. But they taught him to hide.

It makes everything worse. Thinking it might have been possible.

You aren't supposed to fall in love with someone under your command no matter what sex they are. He didn't realize he had. Until he was standing in that apartment with Teal'c and Carter, putting Daniel's life in boxes, and realized Daniel was _never coming back._

Never.

It ought to make everything easier -- problem solved -- and it doesn't. He loved Daniel. And he failed him. Sometimes he hopes the two thoughts together can destroy the memory of Daniel forever, because he knows forgiveness is impossible. And the only thing that keeps him here -- it's not a good reason, he knows that -- is nobody else will look for Sha're and Skaara if he doesn't. If he finds Skaara, if he finds Sha're, it won't bring Daniel back. But it will be a better memorial than the flag he keeps on his mantle.

The Stargate on P3R-233 is inside some kind of museum. It's dark, and smells of dust. O'Neill looks around warily.

Teal'c says the _Goa'uld_ have been here, though not recently.

O'Neill tells Carter and Rothman to make a sweep. Rothman stumbles after Carter, snuffling at the dust. O'Neill grits his teeth. He doesn't like Rothman, but he's dammed if he'll ask for a replacement. As it is, they've been through six A/T specialists in the last three months -- Rothman is Lucky Number Seven -- due to transfers out. It's not that O'Neill asks to have them reassigned. They just decide they want to be somewhere else. He's sure Rothman will, too. Sooner or later. At least no one else has died.

Suddenly Teal'c gets a look at a piece of voodoo and announces -- looking as spooked as Teal'c ever does -- they aren't safe here and have to leave at once. Something about _'Crush Me'_ , which sounds Russian to O'Neill, and probably isn't.

Daniel would know.

And then Carter is shouting for him.

"Crush Me" or not, he and Teal'c are off in the direction of the sound as fast as they can go, weapons at the ready. It's easy enough to find. The only place in this whole damned sideshow where the lights are on. They charge in and skid to a halt.

Carter and Rothman are there.

And so is Daniel.

Daniel stares at him and his face goes white. He reels back, looking as if he's about to faint, and for one crazy moment all O'Neill wants to do is catch him before he falls.

"You're dead," Daniel says.

#

"We walked in here to check it out and he..." Carter swallows hard. "He was standing here. Sir."

"Teal'c?" O'Neill says, and his voice is harsh, because it doesn't matter how much you want something, there are things you know you can't have. His MP5 is already pointed at ... Daniel ... and he flicks the other hand, and Carter falls back behind him, pulling Rothman with her.

"I am uncertain, O'Neill," Teal'c says.

"Jack?" Daniel says. "Sam?" Daniel's voice holds a mixture of shock and disbelief, desperate hope and something on the edge of horror. It's him; in his bones O'Neill knows it's him; and for one sick instant he has the urge to empty the whole clip from the MP5 into Daniel _right now_ , because dead things should _stay dead_ , not come walking up to you on alien planets three months after you've laid a wreath on their grave.

They don't know it's him.

"What are you?" he asks instead, because that's his job.

Daniel's eyes widen at that. He takes a step forward.

"I... I'm Daniel Jackson. I know you can't be ... oh, god," he says, and his voice breaks. "Teal'c? Are you all right?"

"I am quite well," Teal'c says imperturbably.

"Don't talk to it," O'Neill says. "I say again: _what are you_?"

"I'm Daniel Jackson," the thing pretending to be Daniel repeats plaintively. It takes another step forward, reaching out a hand.

"Don't," O'Neill says, jerking his gunbarrel at ... it.

The thing recoils, looking shocked. "Who are you? Why do you look like my friends?"

O'Neill sets his jaw. "Carter, go dial up the Gate. Tell General Hammond we've run into a problem and we need a really quick answer."

Because P3R-233 isn't safe for human life.

#

Jack is alive. Sam is alive.

They can't be.

Jack doesn't think he's him. Or real. Or something. Teal'c doesn't recognize him. Not the way he should. Robert is on SG-1. Sam looks like she wants to cry.

What's going on?

They take him back through the Stargate at gunpoint, disarmed, with his hands secured behind his back as if he were a prisoner, and by then Daniel knows there's something stranger going on than finding people alive who can't be, because he walks down the ramp in the Gate Room and it's there, everything's there, untouched. He tries -- again -- to explain this is impossible, that Earth and the SGC have been destroyed, but Jack won't listen.

None of them will listen to him.

General Hammond calls him 'that.'

_"What in the name of God is that, Colonel O'Neill?"_

_"We don't know yet, General. We found it on P3R-233. It thinks it's Daniel."_

Armed SFs take him down to the Infirmary. Janet's eyes grow wide when she sees him. The captain of the security team makes his report: prisoner found by SG-1 on P3R-233, here for medical examination.

"Janet?" he says hopefully.

"Dr. Jackson is dead," Janet says. Janet tries very hard to keep her voice even, but it shakes, and she won't meet his eyes.

He knows it can't be Janet, this can't be real, but he tries to explain anyway. He tells her he isn't dead -- that Jack is dead, that Sam is dead, that the SGC was destroyed by the _Goa'uld_. She recoils; he reaches for her, just wanting to make her listen, but two of her orderlies grab him. He struggles; he's always hated being grabbed. She gets a needle into his arm quickly, taking blood. It hurts, and he yells.

"You're human," she says, surprised.

"Of course I'm human! I'm Daniel Jackson! Janet, you know me, listen to me! The _Goa'uld_ came here, they destroyed Earth--"

"Whoever you are, you have to calm down right now," Janet says. "We aren't going to hurt you. We just need to run a few tests. It will be easier if--"

"Who are you?" Daniel shouts, struggling harder. He's angry and frightened and knows he's losing control, but he can't help it. "You can't be Janet! Janet is dead! Sam and Jack are dead! I buried Jack myself! The _Goa'uld_ destroyed Earth! Apophis and Amaunet! They destroyed it!"

"Corpsman, let's get some restraints over here," Janet says.

Two orderlies hold him down as a third one tries to force him into restraints, and that's the last thing he remembers.

When he wakes up, he's strapped to a bed in Isolation Medical. He can tell this even without his glasses -- which are gone -- because the walls are black. It's some kind of shielding material, Sam told him once. His mouth is dry from sedation.

He shifts restlessly, but there's no play in the restraints. He's strapped down as thoroughly as Kawalsky was; at least he's on his back. Do they think he's a _Goa'uld_? They have to know he isn't by now. They've had time to do an MRI.

There's someone in the room with him. Not any of the medical staff; it's a green blur instead of a white one. The figure approaches when he starts to struggle.

It's Jack.

"Welcome back," Jack says. His voice is neutral. Daniel closes his eyes in frustration.

"So," Jack says. "That planet? Where I'm ... buried?"

He sounds a little less hostile than he did back on P3R-233, though not much.

"PX8-925." Daniel's voice is hoarse. Jack holds a cup so he can drink through the straw.

"And this, ah, Amaunet?"

It's an interrogation. Daniel wonders if these are friends or enemies. If any of this is real. If he's gone mad. If he's dead. If they're -- somehow -- _Goa'uld_.

He doesn't really think they're _Goa'uld_. Why would the _Goa'uld_ bother with all of this just for him? They aren't, from all he's seen, that big on subtlety. Even if they are, does it matter if he talks? The _Goa'uld_ already know everything about the Stargate and its addresses -- and themselves -- that he does.

"Amaunet is Apophis's Queen. Apophis is a _Goa'uld_ we've fought before. I don't know why I'm telling you all this. I don't really think you can be Jack O'Neill. I wish you were. So that means you're a figment of my imagination, and I'm talking to myself."

"Pretend I'm real," Jack says dryly. It sounds like Jack. It can't be Jack. Daniel sighs, and closes his eyes again. Maybe the last several weeks were just a really bad dream. Maybe _he_ was on the steps that day, not Jack. Maybe he was badly hurt and has been in a coma. Maybe this is his first true awakening.

"The _Goa'uld_ destroyed Earth and you died," Daniel says.

"Ah... not noticeably," Jack says.

"You said... Janet said I was dead." He stares up at Jack -- blurry, even this close -- hoping to see some acknowledgement of his reality. He sees nothing. He doesn't know why -- since this can't be Jack -- it matters so much to him that this man trust him, but it does.

"You're human. Fraiser says your DNA matches Daniel Jackson's. I don't know..." Jack's voice trails off. Jack thinks he's dead too, Daniel realizes. But -- before -- he thought Daniel was something other than human. And now he isn't sure about him at all. Daniel closes his eyes again.

"Tell me what you remember," Jack-not-Jack says.

"The last time... The three of us -- you, me, Teal'c -- were offworld. Sam stayed back at the SGC that day to work on the Gate. There was some kind of problem. Not enough of one for General Hammond to cancel the mission. The wormhole was still open when the SGC -- Earth -- was attacked by the _Goa'uld_ and a blast of energy came through the Stargate. You were standing right in front of it."

_And you died._

"And yet, here I am."

Daniel doesn't answer that. He keeps his eyes closed as he speaks. "Teal'c and I were farther away. We tried dialing back to Earth, but we couldn't get a lock. We kept trying for weeks, but the Earth Gate never responded." He stops.

"So then what happened?" Jack asks. Daniel can't tell whether Jack believes anything he's just said.

"Why am I telling you all this?"

"Because I'm asking you." There's a thin thread of annoyance in Jack's voice now.

"Yeah, well, there are a few questions I'd like answers to, too. Like who you really are. What this place really is. I _know_ Earth is gone: I told you, Teal'c and I found out Apophis and Amaunet organized the System Lords -- that's all the _Goa'uld_ overlords -- to send their combined fleets to Earth almost two months ago now. Earth is gone. And even if it wasn't, what is _Robert_ doing on SG-1?" Perversely, that bothers him as much as all the rest; that Robert should have taken his place. He realizes he's staring up at Jack again. Jack looks angry.

"Rothman joined SG-1 about three months after you _died_ ," Jack says. He gets up and walks away and Daniel is alone again.

Janet comes in a few minutes later. She's all business and won't meet Daniel's eyes. Daniel doesn't push things.

Robert joined SG-1 after he _died_? He's come back from real death twice, and false death -- at the hands of Nem -- once. But this death, real or false, must have been far more final. They don't believe he's real.

Daniel doesn't believe they're real either.

They can't be.

#

A few hours later he's moved from Isolation Medical to a holding cell. At least the restraints come off, though he's in cuffs until they get him to the cell. He's gotten past frightened; now he's irritated at being treated as a prisoner, like a stranger. He demands to see Jack, Sam, General Hammond. He gets no response to his demands. In his solitary confinement, he has plenty of time to think.

Jack -- _can't be Jack must be Jack_ \-- said Robert had joined SG-1 three months after he'd died.

Three months ago they were on Argos. Jack was infected with alien nanites. _He'd_ been dying. Daniel hadn't. But he'd gotten better. They'd found a cure. And they'd all been fine, and alive, and together for almost another month after that. Until PX8-925.

"You aren't who you say you are! I don't believe you!" he shouts at the walls. Nobody pays any attention. Nobody lets him out. Armed guards bring him meals. They won't speak to him.

Time passes.

Somewhere between breakfast and lunch on the third day, he's taken to an Interrogation Room. The upper walls are mirrored glass, and he knows there are probably people watching. Jack walks in. He looks harassed.

"You want to go over it again?" he says.

Daniel simply puts his head down on his hands. "No," he says wearily.

"Carter's got a theory," Jack says.

Daniel looks up. "Sam?" he says hopefully.

"Yeah." The word comes out on a long sigh. Jack sits down opposite him. He looks as if he'd rather be anywhere else. "She says you have to tell us what happened on P3X-866."

Daniel goes suddenly cold inside. P3X-866 was their last mission before the one Jack died on. "We named the planet Oannes," he says slowly. "An alien called Nem -- blue skin, gills -- kidnapped me and held me for three days. He convinced you I was dead, but I wasn't. He just wanted information about his mate. Omoroca. You broke his conditioning and came back for me. I'd been awake for three days, trying to figure out what he wanted, and..."

 _And after Janet released me from the infirmary, you drove me back to my apartment, and you kissed me. And I want to know, I need to know..._ He falters to a stop, because Jack is staring at him, and Daniel thinks Jack is really seeing him for the first time. There's always that moment with Jack, when he starts to let you in. Not an easy man to know, Jack O'Neill, and Daniel realizes, listening to his own thoughts, that no matter how insane, how impossible it is, he believes Jack is real.

He believes Jack is not dead.

"We came back, and got your _body_ ," Jack says harshly.

Daniel feels the world revolve sickeningly around him and takes a deep breath. "That's not possible. Jack, I'm not dead."

"Neither am I."

Daniel drops his head into his hands again. "I saw you die."

"This mirror thing on 233," Jack says after a moment. "Carter says it's like a Stargate. Only it takes you sideways."

Daniel looks up. "I touched it," he says cautiously. "And then Sam and Robert were there." He stares at Jack for a moment longer. "'Sideways?'"

"Sideways." Jack waves own hands in an explanatory fashion, though it doesn't explain much. "Like _Star Trek_."

"' _Star Trek_.'" One of Jack's many obsessions, a television show Daniel has never watched and never intends to. "You know, I might understand this better if Sam explained it."

Sam has been behind the glass. She comes down. She regards him cautiously -- as if he's a stranger -- but not with hostility. Her explanation doesn't make a lot more sense to Daniel than Jack's did, but at least it offers a glimmer of hope. Not madness. Not death. _Science_.

They brought back the artifact and its controller back from P3R-233. Based on the experiments Sam's done on it while he's been locked up, Sam's calling it a Quantum Mirror. She thinks it allows travel between Alternate Realities. The theory behind Alternate Realities is every time anyone anywhere in the universe makes a decision, a new universe comes into existence, and all these universes exist side-by-side. By touching the mirror, Daniel has stepped from one reality into another.

Here, he died, three months ago, on Oannes.

But here, Apophis has not rallied the System Lords to invade Earth. Jack, Sam, Teal'c-here, all his friends, everyone he knows, are still alive.

Earth is still safe.

They go down to Sam's lab, walking through the familiar corridors of the SGC. The Quantum Mirror is there, shut down and empty, sealed behind a Plexiglass shield.

"We had to put that up," Sam says, nodding at the shield. "People kept getting sucked into alternate universes. It happens any time you touch the surface while it's activated. But there's always a mirror on the other side, so you just have to touch it again to get back. We don't want any more accidents, though."

Daniel stares at the Quantum Mirror and reaches out to touch the Plexiglass shield. It's neither cool nor warm. It's just there. "I don't understand," he says. "Why was my Earth invaded and not yours?" He's given them the short history of his life on the walk to the lab. It matches the life of Daniel Jackson here. The one who died and didn't come back to life.

"We don't really know," Sam says. "There has to be a variable I'm just not seeing," she adds exasperatedly.

"Other than that -- this -- was my fault?" Daniel says bitterly.

"You want to explain that?" Jack says.

Daniel wraps his arms around himself and drops his chin to his chest. "Apophis always thought we were a threat after Chulak. But the reason he could get all the System Lords to go along with him was because of what Amaunet told him about us. And she knew what I'd told Sha're."

Jack glances at Teal'c.

"It is possible, O'Neill. I do not know what Daniel Jackson may have said. But the _Goa'uld_ react strongly to any race they perceive as a threat."

"Unfortunately, we've seen some evidence of that," Sam says grimly. She switches the controller on. The center of the mirror shimmers and fills, but it doesn't reflect Sam's lab. It's showing the SGC Control Room, for some reason, but the computers are dark, and show the marks of weapons fire.

_\--flip--_

The lab on P3R-233. It looks the way Daniel remembers it, but the flashlight he remembers leaving isn't there.

_\--flip--_

The lab on 233 again. Different artifacts on the table.

_\--flip--_

A storage room filled with crates.

"Looks like Area 51," Sam comments. "Intact, but it won't be for long, on the basis of what I keep seeing. All of these variations we've just seen are very near our own reality, and when you start going at all further out, most of the SGCs we're able to see through the Quantum Mirror have already been invaded by the _Goa'uld_. I think the reality Daniel comes from may just be ahead of ours by a few months, not really divergent from it, and that means Apophis will be attacking Earth in our reality soon. We have to figure out where the attack is coming from in time to stop it." She shuts down the Mirror again.

"So?" Jack says. "Daniel?"

It is so much as if he's home again, as if the nightmare never happened, that he wants to reject all he knows. To pretend he never stood beside an open grave. Never mourned the man now asking him this question. The man who has never kissed him -- here -- because the Daniel he could have kissed died.

"Teal'c and I went to Chulak."

"That would have been most unwise, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c says. He sounds primly disapproving, as if it were all Daniel's idea. Daniel sighs.

"Yeah. Well. I guess you -- _he_ \-- was going to steal a spaceship, because there wasn't any other way for us to get back to Earth. We'd gone to the Land of Light, and when he disappeared, I guessed where he'd gone, and followed him. I found him in Apophis's temple, with a priestess named Shau'nac. She was trying to persuade him to rejoin Apophis by telling him what Apophis had done. She said Apophis had gathered his forces at a place called _Ria'khet'niwet_. That was a month before we got to Chulak. So Earth was already..."

"You know where this place is?" Jack asks Teal'c.

"I do, O'Neill," Teal'c says. "But it would be prudent to speak to Shau'nac to see what else she may know of Apophis's plans in our reality. I shall present myself as eager to rejoin the _Goa'uld_."

"Yeah, that's what you did there, too. Bra'tac had gone back to being Apophis's First Prime, and you -- _he_ \-- said even though he was, uh, _shol'va_ , he had a chance to be accepted by another _Goa'uld_ Lord if he moved quickly enough. He said fighting from within was the Jaffa's only hope of freedom. I tried to talk him out of it, but, well, it didn't work out so well. After that, I thought I might as well see if I could start up a rebellion of my own." Daniel shrugs. "That didn't work out so well either."

"These things take time," Jack says absently. "You sure you need to go talk to this Shau'nac, T?"

"It would be prudent, O'Neill. We must know the strength and disposition of the _Goa'uld_ forces, and the timing of the attack."

Jack shrugs. "All righty then. I'll go talk to General Hammond."

After Jack leaves, Sam and Teal'c turn to him. Teal'c's face is impassive, giving nothing away. Sam's face is a mixture of curiosity and caution.

"We've missed ... Daniel," she says awkwardly.

"I've missed all of you," Daniel says simply.

#

He opens the door to Daniel's temporary quarters. Daniel is sitting there, surrounded by half the contents of Rothman's office. O'Neill can't make up his mind whether to be irritated or not. They're not Rothman's books, though they've been in Rothman's office for months. They're Daniel's.

But not this Daniel. It frustrates him that he can't quite decide if this is the same man they buried -- or not. Daniel has come back from the dead before. Why not this time?

Daniel looks up when the door opens, and O'Neill sees a look on his face he hasn't seen for a long time, the same hesitant, haunted look that was there right after Abydos.

"Jack?" he says.

"I was about to head out for the night. Thought I'd stop in and see if you needed anything," O'Neill says.

"I guess I've got pretty much everything." Daniel gestures at the books. "I guess you must have kept them."

O'Neill supposes Rothman was too tactful to mention Daniel left them to him in his will.

"Is Teal'c going to Chulak?" Daniel asks.

"Yeah. Tomorrow morning. He figures he's got the best shot at this going alone, and General Hammond agrees, so..."

And that really sucks, and he spent the better part of the afternoon arguing against it, but it's not like they have an all-Jaffa SG Team to send through the Gate to back Teal'c up, either, and a bunch of _Tau'ri_ are not going to exactly be inconspicuous on Chulak, especially if things are going down over there the way Carter and Daniel both think they are.

"That's good, then. Good. Maybe you can..." Daniel stops, but O'Neill knows what he was going to say anyway. _Maybe you can save your Earth._ For a moment he imagines Earth gone, and everyone dead. Imagines the world Daniel's been living in. Daniel never was a soldier, and all Stargate Command's best efforts hadn't been able to turn him into one. O'Neill can't imagine what Daniel was going to do wandering around the universe alone. More alone than anyone ever ought to be.

"Why don't you come home with me? I hear this place gets really depressing at night."

And Daniel smiles, and puts down his book, and comes.

#

"Everything's the same."

Daniel's standing in the middle of his living room, staring around himself as if they've just Gated to an alien planet.

He's not sure what to say to that. The idea of there being a billion _Star Trek_ realities out there just makes O'Neill's head hurt, though Carter is pleased as punch about it. And knowing about them is going to give them the edge against the _Goa'uld_ , apparently. That's good.

"As you remember?" he asks.

"Yes. Just the same." From the sound of his voice, Daniel isn't sure he likes that, and Jack isn't sure why.

Daniel died a few weeks after his birthday, at the end of July. It's the beginning of October now. Dark and chilly. Automatically O'Neill moves first to the fireplace. There's a fire already laid, and he lights it. Then he goes into the kitchen to get them both a beer.

He brings them back and hands one to Daniel. Daniel tilts it back, grimacing -- as always -- at the taste. Three beers and Daniel will be pretty much dead drunk. He never did have any head for beer.

He goes over and stares down into the fireplace. "Thanks for this, Jack," he says, gesturing. "You don't know--" He stops.

"You needed somewhere to be," O'Neill says, because that's part of the truth. It needs to be all of the truth, now and forever. He'd loved Daniel, and he knew Daniel thought of him as a friend. He knows this one does too. He won't destroy that.

He wonders how much they're alike, the one who died and the one who's here. Carter said some of the universes are so much alike that you could step through the Mirror and never know you had. He can't ask. He never could.

He sits down in the chair, watching Daniel, thinking back to that first night -- Daniel just back from Abydos. If he'd known then Daniel would die, would he have let Daniel join SG-1 at all? But without him, the rest of them would have died half-a-dozen times over.

Daniel turns away from the fire and comes to sit down on the couch. He stares down at the bottle in his hands. "You said I died on Oannes." His voice is so low O'Neill can barely hear him.

"Daniel." He doesn't want to talk about this, even with the man who has the most right to talk about it.

"Jack, please. I know you blame yourself. But what happened on Oannes wasn't your fault."

O'Neill gets to his feet. "You died there, Daniel. How is that not my fault?"

 _He_ died there, but he's the one O'Neill's talking to. He turns away, but he hears the clink as Daniel sets his bottle down on the table. "I was there. I know what happened. I have to have made the same choices here I did there," Daniel says stubbornly.

" _You_ didn't die." O'Neill walks over to the fire and stares down into it. Fire and water. The whole planet was fire and water.

"But I could have. There was a risk. Nem told me there was. We both must have made the same choice. That's why--"

"I don't want to hear this, Daniel." Even though it's what he's wanted to know, what any commander would want to know, hearing it is like hearing the dead speak.

Daniel laughs shakily. "You want to know what happened. I know you do. And I'm the only one who can tell you."

O'Neill leans forward, resting his forehead against the wall. For a moment he contemplates banging it. Not a new thought when in a conversation with Daniel. Any Daniel. He closes his eyes. Straightens. Nods. "All right." Maybe it will banish the ghosts.

"Nem wanted to know what had happened to Omoroca in Babylon five thousand years ago. He thought I knew -- and I _did_ know -- but the memories were buried in my subconscious mind. I forced him to use a device on me that would bring those memories to the surface. He told me it could kill me. I didn't think I had a choice; if he didn't get what he wanted, he was going to hold me prisoner there until I remembered by myself, and I knew I never would."

"We were coming back for you!" O'Neill says harshly, and it's the other Daniel he's telling. _Wait for me, Daniel. I'm coming back for you. I won't leave you behind._

"Even if I knew you'd get your memories back, I had no way of knowing Nem wouldn't just take them away again -- or kill you -- the next time. I couldn't be sure you'd even find me. I had to do it."

"You should have waited!" He turns around, and Daniel's standing right in front of him, gazing into his eyes as if that alone can convey information. Or gain it.

"How long was I supposed to wait?" Daniel asks, and in O'Neill's mind the words turn into something else.

"I'm sorry," O'Neill says quietly.

It's better to know. To know Daniel never gave up, wasn't killed in anger, didn't die for nothing. Gambled with his life on Oannes, knowing the risks. Did what any of them would have done, but for personal reasons. With Daniel it was always personal. It's never going to be all right that he died. But it hurts a little less, knowing why and how. And -- somehow -- Daniel's still here.

"So am I," Daniel says. "Because I came back, and you drove me back to my apartment, and we--" he stops, lowering his eyes.

"'And we?'" O'Neill asks.

"Nothing," Daniel mutters, starting to turn away. O'Neill puts a hand on his arm, stopping him.

"Not nothing," O'Neill prods, because there's obviously something else Daniel wants to tell him.

"No," Daniel says. "It wasn't nothing. But it never happened here, and ... I'm not sure you're going to want to hear it."

He never does want to hear the things Daniel tells him he isn't going to want to hear. But the image in his mind is of Daniel staggering out of the waters of 866 wet and alive, and he knows, now, it happened somewhere. And he wants to know what happened next. "Tell me anyway," he says. "I think I owe you a hearing." His hand is still on Daniel's arm.

"You drove me home," Daniel says. Whatever he's about to tell, this is obviously taking just about all the courage he's got. "Janet wanted to keep me overnight, but I'd been underground for so long, I... I just wanted to go home, so even though I was just about out on my feet, she let me go. You drove me home and walked me inside. I think you wanted to apologize for the mess you guys made of my place, but instead you, I, you, you ... kissed me." Daniel won't meet his eyes. "I wanted you to," he adds softly.

 _Not like I hadn't thought about it._ But O'Neill can't bring himself to say the words. He wonders why he did. He wishes he had. Daniel looks stricken. He rubs Daniel's arm comfortingly, apologizing for the silence.

"Danny, I always knew you were sort of gay," O'Neill says, offering the only words he can think of.

#

"You _knew_?" He stares at Jack, mouth hanging open in shock. And Jack, damn him, actually looks amused.

"There's such a thing as a security review, Daniel. Catherine had checked you out. We dug deeper. Talked to your foster parents, your college roommates, David Jordan, Steven Raynor, all those guys. I'm your CO. I read the file."

"But... you never said anything."

"It wasn't supposed to matter to me."

"'Wasn't supposed...'" Daniel walks away and picks up his beer again. He stares at it the bottle in his hands but he isn't really seeing it. "I never got a chance to talk about it, to..."

"Talking's overrated," Jack says.

Daniel turns back around, and now he's angry. This matters so much to him and it doesn't seem to matter to Jack at all. "What would you have said? That it never happened? That I'm disgusting? That I'm betraying my wife?"

"That neither the Uniform Code of Military Justice or the Fraternization Guidelines will let me touch you that way, Daniel," Jack says quietly. He sounds weary now. Daniel just keeps looking at him. Jack smiles. There's no humor in it, and his eyes are unreadable. "Boys who do boys don't get to be Colonels, Daniel. They don't even stay in the Air Force if anyone finds out. Officers who permit -- or require -- sexual favors from those serving under them face anything from disciplinary action to courts-martial, depending on the circumstances." Jack raises his bottle in salute. "Here's to celibacy."

"You sound like you've done a lot of research." Daniel's still trying to come to grips with the idea that Jack might not be completely straight. Well, he already knew that -- suspected that -- after Oannes. But now Jack is saying it out loud.

"Comes with the territory. Leader of men."

"But what about... You were married."

"I'd think you'd be the last person to bring that one up."

"I-- Okay. Yeah." He thinks of Sha're, whom he loves, and Sara, and he knows Jack loved his wife too. He's certain, on no evidence, Jack was faithful, but Sara was there to come home to. Not a host for an alien parasite, and what can be left of her now after all Amaunet has done?

He can hope, but he doesn't know.

"I love Sha're," he says. "I just don't know if she's there any more. _In_ there. I hope... I just don't want you to think-- I don't want _her_ to think--"

"I don't think you ever wanted to hurt anybody, Daniel," Jack says quietly. "We'll... We'll keep looking for both of them. I kept looking for them."

Jack doesn't say they'll get her back, and somehow Daniel's grateful for that. For knowing Jack only makes promises he can keep, and that it's true here too. He thinks about what will happen if Sha're never comes back. And what will happen if she does.

"You don't just love one person at a time, Jack," he says. "I wish it were that easy." Daniel sees Jack's eyes flicker and his mouth quirks. "I can't help it that I... I tried not to let anyone know."

"No one did, Daniel. You were careful."

"You knew, though, didn't you? Jack?" Daniel sets the beer down again -- he's drunk less than half, and it's warm now -- and walks back over to the fireplace. He feels the heat of the flames on his legs, but it's his face that's flushed.

Jack shakes his head very slightly. He didn't know. Never knew what Daniel -- this Daniel -- had thought, had wanted. Though Daniel knows now -- from the silences, the words left unsaid, that Jack -- here as well -- had wanted it too. The touch, at least, if not everything else Daniel had wanted to give him.

"That day. It went like this."

And because it's already happened once, because he's remembered it for so long, because he's dreamed of it longer, it's easy. They're much of a height. The kiss is gentle, and this time it is Daniel who makes the unspoken promises. _I'm sorry I died, Jack. I promise I won't die again._ Jack's hands are on his arms, but not pushing him away.

And Daniel's hands slide down to Jack's belt, because he wants more, all, everything.

#

"No, Daniel, no." Gently O'Neill takes Daniel's hands in his, pulling them away from his belt, and holds them. It pushes their bodies a little apart, and that's a very good thing right now. This could get out of hand. That's not what he wants. Not with Daniel.

The lines between realities have blurred past his power to untangle them. O'Neill doesn't care about the science any more; this is _Daniel_. He's just found a new and different way to come back from the dead this time; had they really thought he wouldn't?

He's come home.

"Why not?" Daniel's face is twisted with frustration and loss. Longing.

"I'm an officer in the United States Air Force. I won't do this to you."

"I want this," Daniel says desperately, but O'Neill knows he doesn't. Not to be a part of the things O'Neill has to hide. The shameful transactions. Not to betray a wife who's neither dead nor alive.

"Daniel, I'm going to retire," O'Neill says carefully. "Not this year, and maybe not next. But I've almost done my twenty, and I can't see anybody making me a General. My knees are pretty well shot, and I'm not interested in flying a desk, so ... retirement pretty soon. After that, the UCMJ won't apply and neither will the Guidelines."

He wants Daniel to understand all the things he doesn't think he can ever say out loud. That Sha're -- that she exists, that Daniel loves her -- doesn't matter in some very selfish way. Sha're matters to Daniel, and god knows O'Neill hopes somehow they can get her back, because Daniel loves her and nobody should be a prisoner of the snakes. But even if Daniel walked away with her tomorrow, it wouldn't change how O'Neill feels. It would probably be better for Daniel if that's what happens: Daniel and Sha're, off somewhere. But it's not what he's thought about. He'll fight for it, though. The promises he's made matter to him.

Daniel stares at him, and O'Neill can see the thoughts flicker behind his eyes as he works it out. "Are you asking me to wait until you can come out of the closet?" he asks in disbelief. He steps back, and O'Neill releases his hands.

#

Jack winces. "I'm not having you be my dirty little secret, Daniel. I won't do that to somebody I care about. And I don't do married men."

And Daniel knows that's as close as Jack O'Neill can get to saying the word 'love' out loud, and he knows, at last, how the conversation he never got to have would have gone. He nods, and smiles. "So we find her. We look for her." He doesn't know what that future will be like. But he knows, now, Jack will be a part of it.

"Still," Jack says. "Together. We'll find out one way or the other. She's your wife, Daniel. You love her. You can't spend the rest of your life not knowing."

Although he can, Daniel knows. Life is neither fair nor kind. He could spend the rest of his life not knowing what has happened to Sha're. But he doesn't have to think about that tonight. Doesn’t have to choose which of his loves to be faithful to with his body, because both of them have his whole heart and always will.

Tonight he has the answers to all the questions that matter.

#

In the morning, they drive back to the Mountain. Jack signs him back in and nobody says anything. He takes Daniel down to the Commissary with him for breakfast and Daniel sits with him and Sam and Robert; Teal'c has already left for Chulak. Except for the fact Robert is there in a team uniform and Daniel's has no insignia, he could imagine the last months never happened. The three of them talk about recent missions, SGC gossip. Robert has only been on the team a few weeks, and things are still awkward. Daniel wonders if he'll be let to have his old place back; if Robert will mind. Then Sam mentions Senator Kinsey is going to be here in a few hours for some kind of hearing.

"Doesn't General Hammond usually go to Washington for those things?" Daniel asks, puzzled.

"Not this time, I guess," Sam says, equally puzzled.

Jack shrugs, but Daniel can tell he's on edge. "General Hammond mentioned it yesterday. Something about the budget. Don't worry about it, Carter."

After breakfast, he walks Daniel back to his quarters and tells him to behave himself. Guest ID and limited freedom of the Base are on the agenda for later today, but Daniel doesn't have them yet. Still, the books Robert dropped off last night are here, and he never has enough time to read. About the time he's trying to decide if it's worth the trouble of trying to talk the SF on the door into going for coffee, another SF comes and tells him he's summoned to the Briefing Room.

#

"So despite your mission report, Dr. Jackson isn't actually dead."

Daniel regards the man at the foot of the table. Silver-haired, dissatisfied, flanked by aides and Major Samuels. He must be the Senator Jack was mentioning at breakfast. He has the look of a querulous toad.

"Care to tell me how many other times you've lied in your reports to the Pentagon, Colonel O'Neill?"

"Oh for crying out loud, Kinsey -- that isn't our Daniel Jackson!"

"Really?" Senator Kinsey says archly.

He glances at General Hammond. He nods -- permission to speak -- and motions for Daniel to sit down.

"It's true, Senator," he says. "I'm, ah, actually from an alternate universe. Your Daniel Jackson died on P3X-866, the planet also referred to in our mission reports as Oannes."

"And how -- if I may ask -- did you get here, in that case?"

Sam explains about the Quantum Mirror, but Senator Kinsey simply refuses to believe her. It's worse than that, though. Daniel listens in horror as Kinsey explains he intends to shut down the Stargate Program -- take away their funding -- immediately.

"But-- But you can't do that! Not now! Jack -- General Hammond -- you've got to tell him! Senator, Apophis is coming to destroy the Earth -- he's coming with ships, with a fleet, right now. In my universe, he's already done it -- Earth is gone, the SGC is gone, everyone's dead -- that's why I'm here--"

"And I suppose you saw this with your own eyes, Dr. Jackson?" Senator Kinsey asks, smirking.

"I was offworld, _Senator_. That's why I'm alive."

Senator Kinsey gets to his feet. "Well this has all been very interesting. And frankly, Dr. Jackson, once this program has ceased operation, I think you should get professional help. But I've heard nothing here today -- not your ridiculous fantasies, not Colonel O'Neill's warmongering imperialism, not Captain Carter's ludicrous notions of Science for the sake of Science -- that have convinced me to keep Pandora's Box open one minute longer. The Stargate Project is a clear and present danger to these United States, and I, for one, will not rest until the Stargate is buried forever."

"Save the speeches, Kinsey," Jack growls.

"Colonel O'Neill," General Hammond says warningly.

"Senator, you have to listen to me," Daniel says. "The _Goa'uld_ have _spaceships_. If we bury the Stargate, we won't stop them from coming. We'll only destroy our only means to fight them. For God's sake--"

Kinsey smiles. "Yes, Dr. Jackson: for God's sake. That's why I'm doing this. If your _Goa'uld_ want to come, let them. I do not believe the Divine Providence which has shaped this great nation of ours will allow what you are telling me to come to pass. If your _Goa'uld_ challenge us, we shall prevail."

Daniel stares after him as he walks away.

The man's insane.

General Hammond says that because of Senator Kinsey's recommendation the SGC will have to cease operation as soon as the teams that are offworld return.

"Jack-- General Hammond-- You can't let him do this--" Daniel says. He can't have come to a second Earth simply to see it destroyed as well.

"I'm sorry, son," General Hammond says, sounding disgusted. "I'm afraid 'Senator' outranks 'General.'"

"We'll see about that," Jack says grimly. "General, doesn't what Daniel has to say cut any ice in Washington?"

General Hammond shakes his head wearily. "I'll go make some calls."

#

Teal'c is one of the last people back through the Gate before it's shut down 36 hours later. He should have stayed away. He comes back with information from Shau'nac that makes Daniel want to hit something: here, as well as there, Apophis is preparing to invade Earth. The fleet hasn't left _Ria'khet'niwet_ yet, but it will soon.

Teal'c is debriefed, though it's just a formality now that the SGC is shutting down. The worst of it is, he's trapped here now, unable to leave. Daniel sits in, since the comparisons he can offer between his world and this are -- apparently, even though Kinsey has decided to kill them all -- still vital.

Here they aren't facing the combined forces of the System Lords. Shau'nac is certain. It is only Apophis and his son, Prince Klorel -- _Skaara_ \-- who will come. Shau'nac believes, in fact, Apophis is keeping his plans a secret from the other System Lords. It will probably be only two _ha'tak_.

"Why?" Daniel asks. "Why would it be different here and in my world?"

Sam shrugs, baffled. "Daniel, there are so many variables--"

"Doesn't matter," Jack says, cutting her off. "Intel's good, and this gives us better odds. So what are we facing, T?"

"One _ha'tak_ is sufficient to destroy a world from space," Teal'c says. So much for better odds. "If Apophis wishes to send troops down to the surface, a _Goa'uld_ mothership carries five thousand warriors in addition to its crew, and is able to carry more. Additionally, it carries many death-gliders; _al'kesh_ , which are mid-range heavy bombing craft; and _tel'tak_ , which are unarmed cargo vessels, but which contain transport rings. Should a _tel'tak_ be landed here, troops and materiels can be ringed down from the mothership to the _tel'tak_ , and in a matter of a few hours, the ring platform inside a _tel'tak_ may be removed and placed in a permanent planetary location to serve as a staging area."

"Oh, that doesn't sound good," Jack drawls.

"But we know where he is, right? The, the, where he's coming from?" Daniel says. "He's still there? We can still stop him?"

"Shau'nac does not believe Apophis' fleet will depart its present location for some days yet, Daniel Jackson."

"General Hammond?" he says. "I know you have orders. I know I didn't see it actually happen in my world. But now you've got Teal'c's information. Apophis is going to attack Earth. He'll destroy everything here. You've got to do something. Please--"

"Daniel." Jack puts a hand on his arm and squeezes gently. Daniel groans in frustration.

#

It's a few hours after the debriefing. Daniel is down in Sam's lab. Sam's packing.

"I don't really see the point to this," he says tightly, gesturing around her office. _You should go to San Diego; say goodbye to Mark and the kids while you can._

"Orders," Sam says brusquely. "They tell me to close up shop, that's what I have to do." She's angry, but not at him.

Jack comes in then, and seems relieved to see him here. Daniel has a Guest ID now -- which gives him limited freedom of the Base -- but he hates running into people who know he -- the other him -- is dead. He's spent some time over the last day and a half with Robert in his office. It was Daniel's office before they moved Robert, and right now Robert isn't sure whether to pack up and give it back to Daniel or take his accumulated leave before the end of the world. It's a tough choice.

"Daniel, let's take a walk. Not you, Carter. You just keep ... following orders."

Jack walks Daniel back to quarters. It's as private there as you can get with a bedroom that has security cameras. "I know this is hard," Jack says, coming inside and closing the door behind them.

"Hard?" Daniel demands angrily. "Watching a bunch of bureaucrats kill everyone on Earth? What would make you think that, Jack?" He supposes it ought to be a consolation that they'll die together this time, but after the future Jack has offered him, he'd rather live.

"Don't give up just yet," Jack says. "General Hammond's on the horn right now. He's flying to Washington in a couple of hours to try to change Kinsey's mind."

"We can't just sit here and wait for them to attack," Daniel says desperately.

"I know," Jack says. "But we've got a lot better shot at taking out two motherships if we can go through the Gate at full strength: at least four Teams and a couple of nukes. We can't get that kind of manpower and equipment with the Program shut down. Look, when was the last time you slept? Or ate something?"

Daniel pushes his glasses up and rubs his eyes. "I don't know." He hasn't slept since that night at Jack's house. He came back to the Mountain the next day, thinking about the future, and discovered there wasn't going to be one.

"Well, get some rest, would you? By tomorrow, I think you're gonna be the only person down here that reads _Goa'uld_ , and Carter's probably gonna need a little help with those mothership blueprints."

"We can't let him win," Daniel says. He isn't sure himself who he means: Apophis or Senator Kinsey.

"We never let them win," Jack says firmly. "Come on now. Get some sleep. Do that, and we'll all go out for pizza later."

"It's been a long time since I've seen the sun," Daniel says, faintly amused by the transparent bribe. He thinks of the eternal sunshine of the Land of Light. They could save a few hundred people -- of all the peoples of Earth -- if they sent them there. If there was enough time.

"Hate to tell you, but I think it's raining up there. Still."

"Yeah. Okay. Sleep." He's sure he can't sleep, but Jack's words have given him hope. Nuclear weapons destroyed Ra's ship. They can destroy Apophis's. Daniel sits down on the bed and begins to unlace his boots.

#

General Hammond is in Washington for three days. The SGC becomes progressively emptier during that time as his staff follows the orders they were given before he left. The Teams have been stood down and sent home on leave; the Infirmary is on a skeleton staff; nearly everybody on 18 has been sent home and half the techs on 19 are gone. The only people in the SGC are the technical staff, the maintenance crews, the clerical and support people, and the security force.

And SG-1.

And him, of course. He has nowhere else to be. If the Program is shut down, well, it doesn't matter, as Earth is doomed. But if not... will he be allowed to step into the place of his Quantum Twin? The longer he's here, the more everyone -- Robert, Sam -- seems to be willing to think of him as 'their' Daniel Jackson, as if he simply took the long way back to life this time.

In a way, he thinks, maybe he did.

He's down in Robert's office again when Jack pokes his head through the door. The two of them are closing down the Department practically by themselves. There are a thousand things to do; deciding what artifacts get shipped to what archives, just to begin with. He and Robert have been overseeing the packing and crating, with a few breaks back in the office to try to keep up with the endless demands from Area 51 for information they simply don't have any more. If they did the packing right it would take months to clear out Cataloguing and Translation. They're not doing it right. He and Robert have at least been trying to make sure the airmen don't break anything, not that it's going to matter if General Hammond can't win in Washington.

"Okay," Jack announces to the room at large, "the commissary food officially sucks. Come on, you guys, we're going out for lunch."

"I've really got a lot of work to finish up here, Colonel," Robert says. He sounds a little nervous, but Daniel already knows Jack intimidates the hell out of Robert, and that's not a good basis for a working relationship. Daniel expects Jack to snap something back -- they're all under a lot of stress -- but he doesn't. Jack is looking at Robert with a very odd expression. Then Jack looks at him.

"Daniel?" Jack asks.

"Pizza or Chinese?" Daniel asks in return. He's already getting to his feet.

"O'Malley's," Jack says.

O'Malley's is busy and noisy and Sam looks puzzled about being dragged out of the Mountain for lunch; she doesn't have as much work to do as Daniel and Robert do, but there's still plenty to do to shut down her department. Teal'c just looks impassive. He's going to die when Apophis reaches Earth, but he hasn't said a word about it. Jack waits until the server has taken their orders and left. "General Hammond got back from Washington this morning," he tells them. "Kinsey won't budge. The Joint Chiefs won't move to overrule him on the basis of Teal'c's info."

"What about Teal'c?" Daniel asks. "They've got to let him go home to his family."

"Oh, they will," Jack says, sounding disgusted. "Next month some time, General Hammond figures. Kinsey's a compassionate guy."

"Next month will be too late," Teal'c observes calmly.

Jack sighs deeply. "Yeah, it will. So I figure we fire up the Gate now. From Chulak, I can get to those other coordinates, maybe do a little damage. I won't have a nuke, but there's still plenty of C-4 in the armory."

Teal'c regards him impassively. "We will go there together, O'Neill."

"I'm going with you," Daniel says. "We're all going together, right?"

Daniel sees Jack hesitate, making up his mind. But Jack will take him, Daniel knows he will. It's why he's here and Robert isn't.

Jack nods briefly, then looks at Sam. "Captain?" Jack says. "This isn't an order. In fact, it's probably treason. If we get back alive -- which I seriously doubt -- you and I are going to be court-martialed."

Sam smiles. "Yes, Colonel. Thank you. I understand that. I'm going." She hesitates. "What about Robert?"

"Dr. Rothman has a previous engagement, Carter."

#

After lunch, they spend most of the rest of the day stealing what they need. C-4, weapons, commando gear, a MALP. All of Daniel's gear has to be replaced, but that isn't very difficult; it's all standard sizes.

Jack sends Robert home precisely at 1700 hours.

They wait until midnight to make their move.

They couldn't do this at all if the SGC weren't in the middle of being shut down, because the Gate Room and the Control Room would be filled with SFs and techs. But General Hammond is in his quarters, and Level 28 is deserted. Nobody even notices the patchwork SG-1 in full commando gear -- plus MALP -- making their way to the Gate Room from the armory.

He isn't carrying much besides his Beretta, grenades, and thirty pounds of C-4. None of them is carrying much besides explosives this trip.

They have to send a MALP through first because they're dead if they walk into the middle of a bunch of Jaffa, but the delay is going to increase the risk of them being stopped before they can get through the Gate. A trade-off, but one Jack insisted on. Jack and Sam disable all the doors between the Gate Room and everywhere else, but the moment Daniel punches in the coordinates Teal'c has given him, warning klaxons sound throughout the Base. General Hammond will be here in minutes, and he will have no choice but to arrest them all.

They send the MALP through. Dark on the other side. Sam switches to infra-red. " _Goa'uld_ ," Daniel says, seeing the familiar not-quite-Egyptian motifs appear.

Sam sends a radio signal to the MALP to retreat. It will dissolve once it enters the event horizon going 'backward', but they don't dare leave it where it is.

They run for the Gate.

#

They're not on a planet. They're not even on a normal _ha'tak_ \-- they get to a window where they can look out and see. They're on something much bigger -- something that can contain a Stargate. And they're trapped. They have their C-4, but Shau'nac said there were _two_ ships. Even if they blow up this ship, the other will still reach Earth.

"Oh, god," Daniel says. "We've failed."

"Not yet," Jack says absently. "There's gotta be a way to get over to the other ship. We'll think of something. Now you and Carter go make yourselves interesting while Teal'c and I go talk to the driver of this bus."

"Jack--" he says. He isn't sure what he wants to say. _Be careful?_ Pretty stupid advice considering that this is a suicide mission.

Jack pats him on the shoulder. "Run along and play," he says. "We'll rendezvous back at the Gate Room."

#

For the next hour he and Sam set charges, until all their C-4 is gone; the time they spent going over the information on _ha'taks_ they got from Teal'c has paid off; Sam is sure the ship will explode when the C-4 does. Sam is careful, setting the charges to trigger with both a timer and a radio detonator, though she'll have to be fairly close for the radio detonator to work. Based on the coordinates -- and Teal'c's estimate of the top speed of a _ha'tak_ \-- the ship will take weeks to reach Earth, but even if it's only a few days, Sam has set the timer to go off in 24 hours, long before the ship reaches Earth. They just need to find a way to get to the other ship to do the same thing, though Sam thinks there's a good possibility the explosion of one ship in hyperspace will destroy both.

Sam's placing her last few blocks of C-4 on the Stargate itself. C-4 won't destroy the Stargate, but there's the possibility the _naquaadah_ will increase the force of the explosion and at least disable the DHD. Teal'c was fairly certain nobody would come to the Gate Room while the ships were in transit -- that's why they picked the Gate Room for their rendezvous point -- but while Sam's working, they hear people coming and hide.

It's Skaara. _Klorel_. He's captured Jack and Teal'c. There is a form of _vocuum_ linked to the Stargate, and through it Klorel reports this news to Apophis, who orders him to execute them on the _pel'tac_ , where the Jaffa may witness their deaths.

Daniel and Sam go to rescue them.

But everything goes wrong, even though they manage to fight their way onto the _pel'tac_ and free Jack and Teal'c. They don't have weeks or even days. They're in Earth's solar system _now_. They can't get to the second ship -- they don't even have Klorel as a hostage, because Jack had to kill him to save Daniel's life. They're trapped on the _pel'tac_ , out of transmitter range of the C-4.

And then they're captured.

#

He awakens blind. In the darkness, Daniel hears Teal'c telling Jack this is the aftereffects of a _Goa'uld_ shock grenade, and it will soon pass. Daniel doesn't care. He saw a sarcophagus earlier. Klorel will rise from the dead. Daniel looked into Klorel's eyes as Klorel ribboned him. He saw nothing there of Sha're's brother. He wants to believe the host survives, that Sha're, here, is somehow still alive, but hope is dying, washed away in the light from Klorel's eyes. But it doesn't matter now. Even if Klorel decides to keep them all alive, it won't be for long. His ship will explode within a day. By then all the cities of Earth will be gone.

He finds a wall by touch and curls up against it.

"Daniel? Hey. Take it easy. We're just having a bad day, that's all," Jack says out of the darkness.

"Everyone on Earth is going to die," Daniel says.

"Just calm down. It's going to get better," Jack says lightly. "You'll see."

His sight comes back slowly, and by the time it does, Daniel can see Jack prowling the cell, looking for a way out. They all hear the sound of Jaffa boots in the corridor and Daniel gets to his feet. He's not sure what's coming, but he doesn't think it can be good.

But Jack was right and he is wrong. It _does_ get better.

Master Bra'tac is the one who comes to their cell. He's come -- not to rescue them, exactly -- but to ally himself with them. Here, as in the world Daniel has left behind, he has once more become Apophis' First Prime, and for some reason he's here on this ship with Klorel instead of on the other one with Apophis. He tells them the ships are holding off their attack against Earth until Klorel rises again.

Sam says it's now less than an hour until the C-4 goes off on its timer. They've been unconscious for most of a day, which means Klorel will rise soon. It only took the sarcophagus half a day to revive him when he was killed on Abydos, so even though Jack shot Klorel several times, Daniel doesn't think it can take much longer for Klorel.

Bra'tac says he knows of a way to get to the other ship. There are transport rings on the _pel'tac_ deck. If they can reach them, and make their way to Apophis' ship, there's still a chance. For what, Daniel isn't sure.

Bra'tac gets their vests and weapons back -- though he can't get the packs with the rest of their explosives -- and they make their way upward through the mothership. They stop outside the door to the _pel'tac_. Bra'tac insists on going in alone, saying they'll know when it is time to follow. A moment later -- even through the door -- they hear the now-familiar whine of the ribbon device.

"Let's go!" Jack says. "Daniel, watch our backs."

Sam thrusts her MP5 at him and follows Jack through the door. Sam has one of those Jaffa weapons that Daniel first saw on Chulak -- a _zat'nik'atel_. Of course Jack is already calling them 'zats.' Daniel hears gunfire and screams from inside the _pel'tac_. He's out here because it's safer, but he doesn't really feel safe. He draws his Beretta as well.

A moment later two Jaffa come around the corner and he opens up with both the MP5 and the Beretta. The submachine gun rides up in his hand and the noise is deafening. He yells for Jack, but he can't even hear the sound of his own voice over the sound of the weapon. Some of the bullets glance off the heavy armored Jaffa collars. Most plow right in through the chainmail. One ricochets upward, and one of the Jaffas' faces is gone in a spray of blood. Daniel stares in horrified fascination, barely remembering to release his grip on the trigger as they begin to fall. It's over so fast. He's doing fine until the third one appears. He starts to swing the MP5 back into firing position again, but he's too late. The Jaffa lowers his staff-weapon and fires.

He's been hit by one of these before. He remembers it from Abydos. The shock. The pain. The fact the blast from a staff weapon doesn't just burn. The pulse hits as hard as a bullet, and Daniel is flung backward as if he'd been punched, feeling things snap and give in his chest. It makes his hand clutch the trigger again, and he sprays the corridor with bullets, a jerky uncoordinated burst that catches his attacker across the knees. The Jaffa bows into the last of the burst and his face explodes.

Then Jack is there, lifting him up. Daniel feels more things tear inside.

"Daniel! Dammit!"

Jack can't be here now. They don't have time.

"No! Leave me. I'll be dead anyway -- just get out of here -- _go!_ "

"I am not leaving you here!" Jack is still dragging him upright, trying to get him on his feet.

"Get out of here!" Daniel gasps. "You're just going to blow up with the other ship anyway! Go! Just -- go! I'll stay and -- and -- and watch your back."

Because he's dying.

Jack lowers him gently to the deck again. He kisses Daniel on the forehead, and then he's gone.

Daniel scrabbles until he gets his hands on the MP5 again. It feels slippery and heavy in his hands -- heavier than before -- and the front of his shirt is wet. But he kicks backward until he has a bulkhead at his back and can push himself into a sitting position. He blinks, forcing his eyes open wide. The corridor is clear.

Breathing hurts, and he tries to concentrate. The others have to have had a clear shot at the rings. They've already gone. Maybe they can destroy the other ship. Save Earth, if not themselves.

_There's a sarcophagus in the Gate Room. If I can get there I have a chance..._

He loops the carry-strap of the gun over his shoulder and drags himself to his feet. The pain is so bad it blinds him for a moment; he's panting, short shallow breaths that don't seem to bring him any air. He takes a wavering step and hears something snap underfoot. His glasses. Doesn't matter, since he can't really see.

He inches down the hallway slowly, clinging to the wall. He's fading fast, and the ship will go up soon, but it's important to keep trying. Jack would want to know he kept trying to stay alive, though there won't be any way -- this time -- to bring him that message. Unless there's another Mirror, another double, somewhere, who has survived this. Unless Jack survives to hear. Daniel would like to think he will.

The sarcophagus is a long way from here. He'll never make it. Got to try.

_Keep moving._

The wall is rough beneath his palms, covered with alien hieroglyphs, but his hands are slick with sweat and keep slipping. When they do, he lurches harder into the wall than he intends to. Tears and sweat are running down his face, but he forces himself onward. Will the sarcophagus still be there? Will it work in time to save him? _It doesn't matter,_ a tiny voice inside him says, _because Jack will be dead. Jack will be dead again._

_Move._

It's getting dark.

_Keep moving._

He slips in his own blood and falls to the floor, and the impact makes him scream. But it's all right -- nearly there -- he drags himself upright again and hammers wildly at the door opening mechanism to the Gate Room, lurching through as if he truly were dead-Daniel and has clawed his way up out of a fresh-dug grave. The sarcophagus is there, and right now he doesn't even care if the ship explodes while he's in it; all he cares about is getting into it because that means _the pain will stop._

_Move._

He drags himself to the edge of the sarcophagus and heaves himself over the side. When he falls in, pain steals his last breath, and as the wings of the lid fold over him, the light surrounds him.

#

Earth is still here, and so are they. It's a good day. Teal'c's alive. Carter's alive. Even Master Bra'tac's alive. The two _Goa'uld_ motherships are gone. O'Neill's not sure how he feels about Skaara being dead. He'd like to grieve for him, but he's seen Klorel up close now. So it seems almost like a release.

Making the transfer from the two damaged death-gliders to the Space Shuttle had been a little tricky, but they'd managed. Bra'tac's look of incredulity at the sight of the _Tau'ri's_ top-of-the-line spaceships had been almost enough to get a smile out of Carter.

Almost.

Because they left Daniel behind again, and it doesn't matter that it's Daniel-from-another-dimension, it doesn't matter that they all expected to die this time, it doesn't matter that he died saving Earth.

He's still dead.

And the fact Daniel took a vacation from death -- that's what it comes down to -- to come here, save Earth, and give O'Neill a good-bye kiss does not make him feel any better at all.

They land at Kennedy and hop a flight back to Peterson. They weren't arrested at Kennedy, so he's pretty sure saving the world counts for a little something in their favor, and that neither he nor Carter is going to be looking at prison time. He's glad for Carter's sake.

He's going to talk to General Hammond about retirement again. And make it stick this time.

At the SGC they're ordered to report directly to the Gate Room. Bra'tac is in a hurry to get back to Chulak; O'Neill made a brief report to General Hammond while they were in the air, but he couldn't say much over an open line. General Hammond did say they were open for business again. O'Neill wonders what Kinsey thinks of that.

When they get there, the Gate Room is full of people. Everyone wants to congratulate them. They're heroes.

"General, I need to report--" O'Neill says.

"SG-1, there's someone here who'd like to see you," General Hammond says.

And Daniel -- _Daniel_ \-- is pushing is way through the crowd, coming to join them, his face lighting up, and O'Neill realizes that until just a few hours ago, Daniel must have thought they were dead.

He'll find out later how Daniel survived. It isn't important right now.

Daniel swoops Sam up into a bearhug, whirling her around as she squeaks in unmilitary astonishment. He flings himself at Teal'c, and the big guy thumps him on the back hard enough to make him cough. He staggers back, and O'Neill is already moving forward, pulling him in, hugging him hard enough to make his ribs creak, slapping him on the back.

Here. Alive. Real.

"Yeah!" O'Neill says. A good day. A very good day. One of their better days. He ruffles Daniel's hair. Later, oh, yeah, sure, they'll have to be careful all over again. But just now he can get away with this.

Because it's a _good_ day.

#


End file.
